Loretta’s Days: The Alzheimer Chronicles

By Harl Barnett

This story of Harl Barnett’s devotion and care for his beloved wife speaks to my belief and probably many of our beliefs that there are certain people destined to be with one another throughout all eternity.

Ann Landers aptly explained that “Love is a friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.

Love is content with the present, it hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and common goals.

If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don’t have it, no matter what else there is, it not enough.”

This is a love story, yet it is also a story of heartbreak and an enigma wrapped in a mystery told in the words of a man smitten and devoted to truly the “love of his life.”
Even after all these years, there is a paranormal aspect to this relationship that defies conventional explanations.

Harl and I both hope the reader of these chronicles will help a caregiver understand what lies ahead in the hell associated with Alzheimer’s and the challenges to be faced. Look for the italicized To Caregivers: throughout for tips and explanations.

These chronicles are not for the faint of heart rather they are for the Caregiver faced with what is about to be a journey into the depths of the unknown with each day revealing a new behavior that challenges them, their family and the hopeless victim of this terrible disease. --- L. Darryl Armstrong Ph.D.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harl Barnett
• Release date: Jul 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370411719

Book preview

Loretta’s Days

The Alzheimer Chronicles

A loving and devoted husband’s recounting of his experiences in loving and living through

The Long Goodbye

Harl Barnett

Copyright 2017 Harl Gilbert Barnett

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

Contents

Foreword

About the Author

1 The Nightmare

2 The mystery of our brain

3 The Spring of 1940

4 Sky-blue eyes and an infectious smile

5 Obedience grew!

6 West to Arizona

7 I almost lost Loretta in Globe

8 You’re the wind beneath my wings …

9 Before Alzheimer’s – Always a smile

10 The ‘Early Signs’ – We just didn’t recognize them!

11 Soon after, things began to fall apart!

12 December 2000 – The Chronicles begin

13 2001 – How much longer am I going to stay before I can go home?

14 2002 – Soon "normal’ days become entirely different

15 2002 – And things go really bad! But the Lord makes the way…

16 2003 – I’ve learned to not try to understand these moments …

17 2004 – One day it’s encouragement, the next it’s total depression!

18 2005 The ‘Long Goodbye’ comes to an end or does it?

19 I believe Loretta is still very near!

20 The dream

Epilogue

Foreword

I came to know Harl and Loretta Barnett in the 1970s as a young just graduated Murray State University, journalism student. The Barnett’s ran the Tribune-Courier in Benton, KY and along with Jeanna Houser, the editor they gave this young reporter a job.

I learned a great deal from all of them during my tenure yet the most important thing I learned was not about journalism it was about the lessons associated with understanding human nature, compassion, loyalty, and duty.

This story of Harl Barnett’s devotion and care for his beloved wife speaks to my belief and probably many of our beliefs that there are certain people destined to be with one another throughout all eternity.

Ann Landers aptly explained that "Love is a friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.

Love is content with the present, it hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicles of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories and common goals.

If you have love in your life, it can make up for a great many things you lack. If you don’t have it, no matter what else there is, it not enough."

This is a love story, yet it is also a story of heartbreak and an enigma wrapped in a mystery told in the words of a man smitten and devoted to truly the love of his life. Even after all these years, there is a paranormal aspect to this relationship that defies conventional explanations.

Harl and I both hope the reader of these chronicles will help a caregiver understand what lies ahead in the hell associated with Alzheimer’s and the challenges to be faced. Look for the italicized To Caregivers: throughout for tips and explanations.

These chronicles are not for the faint of heart rather they are for the Caregiver faced with what is about to be a journey into the depths of the unknown with each day revealing a new behavior that challenges them, their family and the hopeless victim of this terrible disease.

Intentionally, I have edited little of this material. I came to believe as I read this work that Harl needs to describe and tell his story in his way. I have let him do so as much as possible.

In these pages, you will find the wisdom and experiences of a man so devoted and loyal that he came to personally understand what President Ronald Reagan called The Long Goodbye.

L. Darryl Armstrong PhD

(www.ldarrylarmstrong.com)

June 2017

Harl Gilbert Barnett

Harl Gilbert Barnett was a product of the ‘Great Depression’ of the 1920’s and 1930’s that proved human survival is possible in the direst of circumstances. He was born on January 6th, 1922 in an abandoned corn storage building belonging to the farmer by whom his dad was employed as a farm laborer from sunrise to sunset at fifty cents a day.

Harl graduated high school and briefly attended Murray State Teachers College (now Murray State University). Hitler had invaded Poland beginning what was to become the worldwide conflict known as World War Two.

Harl, at nineteen, left school at the end of the first semester to seek employment hoping to earn enough to return better financially able to continue. Then Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and our country too was now at war. And Harl’s future was now well defined. He served in the Pacific theatre, was returned to the States in March 1946, became interested in broadcasting and employed as writer/announcer first in Mesa, Arizona. He worked for several Arizona broadcasters, returned to Kentucky in 1962 and employed at WCBL in Benton, purchased a floundering weekly newspaper and growing it from 1100 subscribers (some paid) to almost 7,000 (all paid), revenue from an annual gross of under $5,000 to several hundred thousand dollars.

Now at 95 Harl is spending his days on his sons’ farm in northwest Arkansas.

Chapter 1

The Nightmare

The ring – The search for the ring brings mysterious, hair-raising, heart-pounding surprises and revelations, the most important and endearing are notes of love found at exactly the most appropriate times, leading all to believe, though unseen, she has not gone! (Read on for some shocking absolute truths.)

The 13th of April in the year of Nineteen ninety-six was our 50th wedding anniversary. We would have celebrated our 60th in barely 4 months when she died. And there was a promise made on our 50th which now cannot be fulfilled. Or can it? Another promise, made several years later, will no doubt be kept and this promise brought a smile as she remarked, That’s the sweetest thing you ever said to me. More on that later.

First, let us delve into the paranormal in the hope that some of the events to come can perhaps be explained.

I, without an ounce of training in psychiatry or psychology, with nothing more than curiosity and an abundance of time to think, have concluded that our ‘mind’ is much, much more than we have concluded.

Since my Loretta’s demise, and in a few instances before, there have been mysterious occurrences that rational thought cannot understand.

One night, quite some time after the hell of Alzheimer’s attacked Loretta and shortly after we had retired, I was nearly asleep when I heard her say, almost in a panic, Oh God, what’s happening to me!?

How much later I don’t know, I sprang out of bed also in a panic. I can’t begin to explain, but my mind had become Loretta’s mind! I was terrified!

I seemed to be in total darkness, totally disconnected from everything I ever knew. Nothing remained which I remembered. No friends, no familiar surroundings, nothing!

I could not determine where I was or how to find my way and no one to help. I seemed to be a lost soul floating around in horrifying darkness when I suddenly sprang from bed with heart pounding and ready to scream.

It was then I began to realize it was a nightmare and that I had, seemingly, been transposed into her psyche.

Later I considered trying to write her story from her Alzheimer tormented mind but concluded, even if I could, it would have driven me insane.

But, before we examine any of the other irrational events let us explore some possible ‘mind’ explanations.

Chapter 2

The mystery of our brain

First, it may be concluded that the organ which we call a ‘brain’ is similar to a computer. It is programmed to operate our physical apparatus (lungs, heart, etc.) while we are totally unaware and unconscious.

While we sleep, the computer/brain sustains life by maintaining the necessary functions. But, how is the computer/brain programmed? Who or what programs it? We do not consciously do it. We do not think about winding it before we sleep. Our body naturally grows tired, we are sleepy, and without giving it thought we become unconscious of all surroundings, and the brain/computer assumes control. If not, our body dies!

The preceding has been in my thoughts for years, but only after watching my Loretta suffer the torments of Alzheimer’s hell has it become more interesting and possibly, just possibly, more provable.

If the brain/computer is programmed/operated by the mind, who, but the Universal Intelligence, our Creator could control our mind?

Is our mind the direct open connection to our Creator? Does this explain how our Creator/God knows our every move and thought? It has been said He not only knows when the sparrow falls, but He is also there when it falls.

More importantly, is sleep the perfect parallel of death? We die/fall asleep and does that Universal Intelligence/Creator/God sustain us in spirit until He awakens us?

As we continue with Loretta’s story we shall see evidence the preceding could, without a doubt, be true. Like computers often do Loretta’s brain malfunctioned and her mind continually tried to repair it. In failing to correct the problem her frustration often brought tears.

(Throughout this chronicle I will leave notes for all caregivers to consider.) To Caregivers: Be aware that the victim of Alzheimer’s may completely understand what you are doing or saying, but is unable to respond. Never talk around them without including them. Don’t talk about them thinking they do not understand.

This story, like that of Homer’s Odysseus, the King of Ithaca and Greek leader of the Trojan wars who wandered ten years before reaching home, is the story of Loretta’s years of wandering before reaching home. Some, including myself, thought her day of joy and celebration came and she went to her heavenly home on the 9th of December, in the year 2005.

However, following revelations suggest otherwise. There are several instances to suggest she may have had unfinished business to care for before the journey, and the search for ‘the ring’ had some amazing and, more than once, terrifying results, as will be seen later.

Could a promise I made to her, only a few years before, be the cause of coming events? The promise will be kept even though yet unfulfilled.

Chapter 3

The Spring of 1940

I first saw her when she was fifteen in the spring of 1940. She had wings on her feet and fire in her sky-blue eyes, her head tossing the honey blond hair in the wind. She was prancing down the path home from band practice with several young girls, whom I didn’t see. I saw her only. No chance to speak. On following weekends, with friends, we drove around Princeton, KY hoping to see her, but failed. Had I seen a mirage? Was she only a dream?

I didn’t see her again until the Christmas basketball tournament of 1940-41 at the old Kuttawa, KY High School Gym. I was home from Murray State Teacher’s College for Christmas break, when I saw that honey blond hair directly in front of me. The lights reflected from her hair almost as if it were about to catch fire. I learned it was Loretta. At first, it was the natural animal attraction. I did not learn I wanted to spend my life with her until 5 years later, after the war. That’s when I saw the real Loretta. I saw her spirit, her heart, her love for life and her compassion and love for others. Her true soul and spirit was so obvious one could not help but love her.

Now she has been my life for over 59 years (almost 65 if counting the chance meeting at the basketball tournament).

But my heart has been ripped from my chest in her final 5 years, watching her suffer the torments of Alzheimer hell, on a feeding tube because of a stroke, which rendered her unable to say more than I love you, which she would repeat over and over.

She once asked, Please help me, which ripped out my gut and caused indescribable pain. She always thought I could fix anything, could overcome any difficulty. This time I couldn’t help her.

But the comment she made, earlier, when she first realized something was wrong, will haunt me until I