The Wink of an Eye - Volume Ii

By H. Peter Hoffman

After he lost his wife to Alzheimers, author H. Peter Hoffman knew he lost a big part of his life. But he found a new meaning and a new reason to look forward to each day when he unearthed letters sent to him by his then girlfriend, Doris. In this release, the author captures his and his beloved wifes story through more letters and photographs. Included in this volume are letters written between1943 and 1946. It covers his wifes illness with Alzheimers spanning from 2002 to 2009.

When my wife passed away. I had totally forgotten the content of the letters, and now they were adding emotion and enjoyment to my life. Each evening, I look forward to retiring to my den and reading some of her letters. What a wonderful legacy she left me with! When she wrote those letters, she couldnt possibly have known how much enjoyment I would get from them over sixty-five years after they were written. I have read them more times than you can count on your fingers. The letters gave me a new feeling about my memoir. It is really more of a true love story than a memoir. The letters reminded me of what a wonderful person Doris was and how strong our love was, Hoffman shares.

From first page to the last, The Wink of an Eye Volume II will fascinate readers with a true love story lasting over six decades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781477167236

Book preview

The Wink of an Eye

Volume II

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A True Love Story

Lasting Over Six Decades

H. Peter Hoffman

Copyright © 2011 by H. Peter Hoffman. 92357-HOFF

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902039

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

Preface

About the Author

Chapter 1   Doris Is Having Memory Problems, 2002 to September 28, 2006

Chapter 2   Daily Log Entries from September 29, 2006 to September 17, 2007

Chapter 3   Daily Log Entries from September 18, 2007 to January 15, 2008

Chapter 4   Daily Log Entries from January 20, 2008 to May 25, 2008

Chapter 5   I Placed Doris in an Assisted Living Facility

Chapter 6   Doris’s Eighty-second Birthday and Still in Emeralus

Chapter 7   I Transferred Doris to Abby Rose Manor on April 30, 2009

Chapter 8   Doris Passes Away on June 8, 2009

Chapter 9   I’m in Love with an Eighteen-year-old Girl

Chapter 10   I’m in the Navy Now

Chapter 11   I’m in California and the Pacif ic Now

Chapter 12   Oh! Oh! I Made a Big Mistake!

Chapter 13   Recovery from the Bump in Our Relationship

Chapter 14   The Final Chapter of My Love Story

Preface

When my beloved wife, Doris, developed Alzheimer’s, a hospice volunteer was assigned to visit her once per week. Carole F ischer provided some respite for me so that I could go to the f itness room and get some exercise. She also stayed over the lunch hour, preparing lunch for Doris so that I could also have lunch outside. One day she asked me how I met Doris. I proceeded to tell her how we met, and I also told her about a couple of incidents early on in our relationship. She thought that it would make an interesting story and suggested that I write my memoir. That is how I got started on this document, The Wink of an Eye. I hadn’t thought of doing that before but decided that I would give it a try. I thank Carole F ischer so much for suggesting that I write this story, because it helped me through Doris’s long illness. I have thoroughly enjoyed putting this story together and found it quite interesting and therapeutic. I started on this endeavor in early 2008.

Carole proofread it for me in sections, as it progressed. Another friend, Iona Woody, proofread it also. Pam Matthews, a member of our jazz band and a former college professor, read the story and made comments also. Sally Chapman, the wife of one of our vocalists in the Trilogy Jazz Band, read it and commented on it. Julie Olson, another caregiver, also read some of it. I want to thank those ladies for helping me with the project.

As the story progressed to the present, my wife passed away, and I decided to bring an end to the story at that time. After my wife passed away, I was hunting for something in the storage loft above my garage, and in the process, I discovered a box full of letters. They were letters that were written to me from 1943 to 1946. I had apparently saved them. I couldn’t resist reading them. Most of the letters were written by Doris when I was in the navy during WWII. There were also some letters from my parents and my sisters, Betty Holcomb and Gertrude Luby, during that same timeframe. I became addicted to the letters. I couldn’t leave them alone. They brought me back to relive that earlier time. It seemed to be a way of bringing Doris back to me. I then decided to include some of these handwritten letters into my story. Rather than integrate them into the text already created, I decided to add them to the end of the story. It seemed OK because the letters were giving me new life after my wife passed on. The letters, written between 1943 and 1946, are contained in volume 2 of the story. I decided to create two volumes because the story is very long with the letters included. Volume 1 spans from 1925 through 2002. Volume 2 includes the letters and spans from 2002 to 2009, when my wife passed away. I had totally forgotten the content of the letters, and now they were adding emotion and enjoyment to my life. Each evening, I look forward to retiring to my den and reading some of her letters. What a wonderful legacy she left me with! When she wrote those letters, she couldn’t possibly have known how much enjoyment I would get from them over sixty-f ive years after they were written. I have read them more times than you can count on your f ingers.

The letters gave me a new feeling about my memoir. It is really more of a true love story than a memoir. The letters reminded me of what a wonderful person Doris was and how strong our love was.

This story was written during the period 2008 to 2010 by:

H. Peter Hoffman,

582 Summerset Drive,

Rio Vista, CA 94571.

About the Author

I, H. Peter Hoffman, was born in 1925 in the countryside of northern New York State. I served in the navy during World War II as an aerial gunner and aviation radioman aboard a seaplane. After the war was over, most of my employment years were with IBM, which included a European assignment. I was the primary caretaker for my wife during her bout with Alzheimer’s. Our marriage lasted sixty-two years. I currently play the drums in an eighteen-piece swing band.

The front cover picture was taken in 1988 of the author and his wife, when he was 62 and she was 61.

Chapter 1

Doris Is Having Memory Problems,

2002 to September 28, 2006

Doris informed me that she wasn’t going to drive the car anymore. She said that she gets confused sometimes when trying to decide which direction to turn. She was afraid that she might make the wrong move and cause an accident. Some time after that, it became evident that her memory was beginning to fade. We made an appointment to see a neurologist. We visited two neurologists, who worked together, in January 2003. Doris was asked questions that she should be able to easily answer, and she was unable to answer them. Various blood tests were taken to make sure that something wasn’t wrong with her system. Those tests came back negative. I believe a brain scan was also done. After the testing, it was clear that she had dementia. I was told that it might be Alzheimer’s disease, but you can’t be certain without an autopsy.

As time progressed, I began to take over handling the f inances and making the meals. She was unable to take care of the check book as she had done all of our married life. She had diff iculty f inding items in the kitchen and couldn’t follow a recipe anymore.

We had sexual intercourse for the last time. I was eighty years old, and she was seventy-nine. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t exciting for her. It just wasn’t appropriate for us to have sex anymore because she was not Doris anymore. I would have been taking advantage of her if I forced the issue. In fact, one morning we both woke up, and I rolled over with a minor erection and bumped it into her body.

She immediately said, Oh! I don’t want to get pregnant. Therefore, I decided that I would not pursue intercourse between us anymore.

Most of the paragraphs in Chapters 1–8 were taken from a daily log that I kept about Doris’s memory problems, where each paragraph represents a different day from the daily log. Some entries are omitted to reduce repetition.

The doctor prescribed Aricept for her memory problems. She used it for a while, but it seemed to affect her appetite negatively. She often didn’t feel like eating breakfast. Every once in a while, she would have a f ierce nightmare in the middle of the night. I would hug her and tell her that everything was OK. She had never had nightmares before. Ultimately, we stopped giving her Aricept due to the undesirable side effects.

As time went on, her memory gradually got worse and worse. Doris frequently woke up in the morning and told me she was scared. She then would say, What if somebody throws the ball to me, I know I can’t handle it. I usually would say, You are not playing in any game today. She would respond, Are you sure? I then used to spend time convincing her that she was not playing ball that day. She has not played ball since high school and after high school into her twenties, when she played softball, volleyball, and basketball. The next morning she woke up and again said that she was scared. This time, I told her that I had told the team that she wasn’t playing, and she said, Who did they get to take my place? I claimed that I didn’t know the girl’s name. She said, What a relief! That ended the discussion. Prior to that, it went on and on because she couldn’t believe that she didn’t have a game to play that day.

Doris has gotten lost a couple times on her neighborhood walks. People have helped her get back home. I didn’t always know about it until a long time after it happened.

May 29, 2006—I was getting her breakfast one morning, and I told her to pour her coffee. Shortly thereafter, she held up a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing and said that we are almost out of this. Shortly after that, I examined her coffee, and it looked peculiar. She had put salad dressing in the coffee instead of Coffee-mate. The Coffee-mate is normally next to the salad dressing in the refrigerator. We were out of the liquid Coffee-mate, and she should have used the powdered Coffee-mate which is not kept in the refrigerator, but is adjacent to the coffeemaker. Needless to say she didn’t like the taste of her coffee that morning. I threw it out.

The following photo shows me playing the vibes at a Music of the Night show.

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The following photo shows me playing the drums at a party in Jay McGee’s house.

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June 01, 2006—I found Doris rinsing off her hearing aids under the faucet. These are the kind of aids that sit external to your ear with a small tube that enters the canal. After I found her doing that a couple times, I f inally put her hearing aids away. She could hear reasonably well and didn’t really need them anyway.

June 01, 2006—We were quietly watching TV in the evening when she suddenly asked, Where is Doobee? Doobee was our last dog that died about eighteen years ago. I explained that he was dead.

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June 02, 2006—Doris has attended two different exercise classes in the past. The Aqua Cardio class is in the indoor swimming pool where they do exercises in the water as prescribed by the instructor. The Sit Down Shape Up class is where they sit in chairs and do exercises as prescribed by the instructor. The instructor is Kelly O’Brien who has been very nice and helpful to Doris. Doris is always glad that she went to the class after it is over. She enjoys it, and it is good for her. However, it is diff icult to get her to go because she is always afraid she will embarrass herself. She cannot recall from one week to the next what the class is all about. She is sure that she won’t know what to do. When I urge her to go, she gets all shaky and cries or is on the verge of crying. If I do, eventually, get her to go after much urging, she always admits afterward that she is glad she went. However, the following week we have to go through the same painful process. The following photo shows Doris in the Sit Down Shape Up class.

June 03, 2006—It was about 9:00 p.m., and we were watching TV. Doris got up and headed for the bedroom. I thought perhaps she was going to get ready for bed. Instead, she came back a little while later, and she was dressed in different clothes. She thought that we were going somewhere. I explained that it was almost time to go to bed. She acted surprised. Eventually, when we went to get ready for bed, I prepared for bed and got into bed. I wasn’t paying attention, but Doris apparently came out of the closet with the same clothes on and got into bed. The next morning she got up and wondered why she wasn’t wearing her pajamas.

June 04, 2006—She asked about her family again today. She couldn’t understand why her family hadn’t contacted her. She asked, Do they know where we live? She assumed her father, mother, and sisters were still alive. I told her again that they had all passed away a long time ago, and she has just forgotten. I have been advised that it would be better to make believe they were still alive. However, I have a diff icult time doing that. She doesn’t get weepy or seem to feel any pain. She seems surprised but it soon passes. Doris got up from the supper table at the end of the meal and carried the cookies toward the bedroom. I informed her that they belong in the closet in the kitchen. She also asked where the dog was, again.

June 06, 2006—I have diff iculty in f iguring out what Doris wants when she talks to me. She can’t f ind the words, and I have to guess much of the time. She has a big problem with the time of day. In the evening, she thinks it is morning.

June 16, 2006—I found the table napkins in the dishwasher today. Doris had put them there to be washed. I am f inding things in strange places. Sometimes, I just don’t f ind them at all. I suspect they go out with the garbage.

June 20, 2006—Doris had the idea that some folks were expected to visit us today. She got very angry with me when I told her that we weren’t expecting any visitors. She was certain of it and thought I was wrong. She felt we should be prepared to feed them. I didn’t convince her, but of course, no one came to visit us.

June 29, 2006—Doris is having great diff iculty expressing herself. Today she was looking for something, and she couldn’t tell me what it was. She says some words, but they are so disjointed such that I can’t understand or get a hint of what she wants.

June 30, 2006—This evening, I saw Doris fumbling with something in the kitchen. I got out of my easy chair to f ind out what she was doing. I found that she had an aerosol can of PAM. I asked her what she was doing. She wanted a drink. I told her that PAM was a cooking oil. I got her a drink of water. That scared me because I thought that she might drink something dangerous.

July 02, 2006—I was preparing supper when Doris wanted to set the table like she often does. She could not f ind the silverware drawer. She looked in a few places, and I f inally showed her where it was. Later in the evening, she told me that she wanted me to help her with something. She could not make me understand what she wanted. She had just come in from outdoors, so I suggested that we go out there. We never did f igure out what she wanted. This is happening more and more. She cannot think of the words to say. She will say a few disjointed words, which by themselves make no sense. Later in the evening, she pointed to the digital clock on the gas range and asked me what it was.

July 05, 2006—This morning she agonized over the fact that she didn’t know what to do about the Aqua Cardio class. She was scared. I f inally got her to go to the class and according to the instructor, she did well. I had band practice this afternoon and when I got home, she asked me what she should wear. She expected that we were going somewhere. Should I wear bathing suit? I got the impression that she was confused with what she did in this morning’s class, which was conducted in the swimming pool. I told her we were going to eat supper and then watch TV for the evening. F ive minutes later, she asked the same question. She did that a total of four times within an hour.

The f irst photo shows Doris in her Aqua Cardio class. The second photo shows how beautiful she is at the age of seventy-nine and a half.

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July 08, 2006—I found Doris trying to squirt her Opium perfume on her toothbrush instead of toothpaste. Later, I found her putting dishes in the cupboard from the dishwasher. The problem was that the dishes had not been washed yet. We always rinse them off before storing them in the dishwasher so they