Living in John’s World: Because He Can’t Live in Mine

By Patricia Sanderfer

In the 1960s, a young man met and fell in love with a woman nine years older than him. After Pat reluctantly encouraged John to date women closer to his age, the winds of time took them down different paths. Neither would be free at the same time for years to come. Still, they stayed in touch and saw each other occasionally. But everything changed when John was diagnosed with early onset dementia while in his late forties.

As the disease slowly invaded the mind of this amazing, intelligent man, Pat reveals how she and John joined hands and hearts and decided to make the journey together. As they fell in love again and married, a heavenly light guided the way, providing warmth and comfort to a path that was sometimes steep and rocky, but often filled with love and laughter. While disclosing experiences that tested her inner-strength and perseverance over the next eleven years as John struggled and eventually succumbed to dementia, Pat provides reassurance to both caregivers and patients that they are never alone in their journeys.

In this powerful and heartfelt memoir about second chances, love, and resilience, a widow chronicles her experiences over eleven years as her husband battled dementia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Feb 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480874282

Patricia Sanderfer

Patricia Sanderfer loved and lived with her husband for eleven years while he battled early onset dementia. She hopes that by sharing her story that on the same journey will find comfort. Patricia currently resides in Macon, Georgia. This is her first book.

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Copyright © 2019 Patricia Sanderfer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-7429-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-7428-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019900802

Archway Publishing rev. date: 2/5/2019

Dedicated to my loving husband, John,

whose strength and courage

carried him down the rocky journey of dementia.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Forbidden Fruit

Chapter 2   Friends or Lovers

Chapter 3   The Flame Subdued

Chapter 4   Together Again

Chapter 5   Our Journey Begins

Chapter 6   New York State

Chapter 7   Trip to Florida

Chapter 8   Together at Last

Chapter 9   A Puppy for John

Chapter 10   A New Neurologist

Chapter 11   Our Wedding

Chapter 12   The Wedding

Chapter 13   John’s Health

Chapter 14   John’s Illness Becoming Worse

Chapter 15   Finally Home

Chapter 16   To The VA Hospital

Chapter 17   First Visit Home

Chapter 18   The Birth of John’s Granddaughter

Chapter 19   Quarterly Meeting

Chapter 20   Fateful Day

Chapter 21   New Ward

Chapter 22   The Dentist

Chapter 23   Good Bye, My Love

About the Author

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CHAPTER 1

Forbidden Fruit

I had just finished feeding him breakfast. I looked at his face, so strong and handsome. Tears were welling up in his beautiful brown eyes that still looked so intelligent.

Is something wrong, John, I asked? There was no reply. He stared straight ahead with a far-off look as tears trickled down his face. I asked if he hurt somewhere or if he felt bad, but there was no response.

Do you miss someone, John? He glanced at me and nodded his head, yes. Each name I mentioned brought no response.

Finally, I said, John, do you miss Pat?

Pat, he said, as his head dropped and his body shook with sobs.

I stood up and held him in my arms. I am Pat, John, I am your Pat, I said, knowing that the words simply floated in the air and had not reached him at all. I wondered as I held him, at what place in our time together was the Pat he remembered and missed so much.

I can remember, as clearly as if it were yesterday, the first time I saw him even though that was more than thirty years ago. He came into the Civilian Club with another boy and stood on the edge of the dance floor. I was sitting with three girl friends in a half-circle booth next to where they were standing.

I was trying to watch the dancing, but my eyes kept going back to this handsome young man. His short military haircut could not keep the curly wisps of his black hair from giving him a tousled, windblown look. The lightweight jacket he wore did not hide the wide shoulders of his slender body. Too bad, I thought to myself. Even from here, I can see he is much too young for me to be interested in him.

My friends and I had talked about leaving the club to go home. I suggested that we ask the two young men if they would like to have our booth when we left.

Quickly, one of them slide into the booth beside one of my friends and John slide into the booth beside me.

They had just returned from Florida and their lively conversation convinced us that we didn’t really have to leave so soon. They were air traffic controllers in the Air Force and they had been on temporary duty in Florida where they had worked in the tower during the lift-off of Apollo 11. They were still full of excitement from the great experience of participating in a space launch.

As he sat beside me his presence was so overwhelming that it was almost uncomfortable. His slightly up-tilted nose added a sort of impishness to his otherwise masculine face and beautiful, wide smile.

His tanned face was still slightly flushed from the sun and it seemed I could still smell the salt air. After getting a closer look, I realized I was right before. He was so young. Much too young for someone thirty years old, with an eight-year old child, to be feeling this attraction.

As the five of us sat talking, I felt his hand close over mine. I took his hand and laid it on the table. I said, Look, Sonny, just because you saw The Graduate, doesn’t mean I am Mrs. Robinson. We all laughed and I thought I had everything under control. As we started to leave, he asked if he could call me, but I told him I didn’t think that would be a good idea.

A few days passed and I still could not get John out of my thoughts, but I felt I had made the right decision about the phone number. I had been married to a handsome man two years older than me and he spent most of the eight years we were married involved with other people. The last thing I needed was to get involved with a younger man.

When the phone rang, I was surprised to find that it was John on the line. How did you get my number? I asked?

He said, You are the third person with your name in the telephone book so it didn’t take long to get to you,

I was amazed at the excitement I felt and my resolve to not see him melted away as we talked. My thought was that we could be friends. I wanted to keep him in my life somehow.

When he walked it was like poetry in motion. He seemed to walk on the balls of his feet, and he was as graceful as a large cat.

His shoulders were very strong, probably because playing baseball was his first love and all he ever wanted to do. Maybe he was a great baseball player because his arms and shoulders were so strong and his body was perfectly balanced with broad shoulders that tapered down to narrow hips. He was almost six feet tall with long arms and legs. So handsome, he was, with a smile that would melt the snow.

He thought he had a future in baseball and was being considered for a baseball scholarship, but the draft for the Vietnam War was imminent. If he was going to the war, he wanted to be in the Air Force so he enlisted. I was so glad, because it was the Air Force that brought him to me.

When he looked at me and spoke to me, he made me feel warm inside and somehow more special than I had felt in a long time or maybe never before.

I had to get ahold of myself. John had told me he was twenty-two years old. I had a brother that age. I certainly would not want my brother getting involved with an older woman; especially not with someone who was divorced and had a child.

Not trusting my emotions, I decided to take him to the Girl Scout camp and introduce him to my daughter. Once he sees her, I thought, the reality will hit him and he will pull away from the relationship on his own.

John was all for the visit to the Girl Scout camp. He brought my daughter a can of bug-off spray. Since he had spent most of his life in the woods hunting and fishing, he thought this would be the perfect gift. As it turned out, she was delighted to get it. The visit went well. Her presence in my life didn’t seem to matter to him at all.

As the days passed and we spent more and more time together, I knew I was falling in love with him and I had to do something. It wouldn’t work to tell him I didn’t want to see him again, because I knew he would charm me out of that.

I knew a pretty young college student who was attending a college nearby. My plan was to invite her to dinner one night when John was going to be there and I was sure they would be attracted to each other.

The evening went just as I planned. We had a good time. They seemed to like each other and we laughed and talked. After a while she said she needed to get back to the college and left.

After the door closed, John turned to me and said, You may not want me, but I can find my own girlfriends. After that, he turned and left my home.

It was hard to sleep that night, but pain was not a stranger to me. I had been hurt in my marriage and never wanted to experience loving someone and losing them again. I did not have the self-confidence to think I could hold on to this young, handsome man.

The days went by and I did not hear from John. Each time the phone rang, my heart would jump. I was afraid it was him and afraid it was not him.

One night, about one o’clock in the morning, the phone rang and it was John. John was an air traffic controller in the Air Force and the Communications Squadron. The group he was assigned to was on field exercises somewhere nearby. They were living and operating out of tents. John had waited until everyone was asleep and slipped back to the tent where the telephones were set up to call me.

We talked for a long time. Among other things, we talked about our age difference. The age difference did not matter to him and he convinced me that we would have a great time together.

CHAPTER 2

Friends or Lovers

The next few weeks were the most fun I had ever had in my life. John had an older model blue convertible car. My youngest brother was attending the junior college at Panama City, Florida. He lived in a small concrete block house on Thomas Drive across the street from the ocean.

I have since looked to see if I could tell where that house was, but Thomas Drive is now a thriving well-developed area of Panama City.

John and I, his friend, Bob, and Bob’s friend, Ruby, would go to Panama City in John’s old blue convertible and stay with my brother on the beach. We spent wonderful, fun-filled days in the sun and took long walks in the moonlight on the beach.

My brother was working as a bouncer at a local beach club to help pay his college expenses. The first night we went to the club, we went in and sat down at a table and ordered drinks.

The owner of the club came over and said to my brother, Ed, I don’t care if she is your little sister, we can’t serve drinks to minors. We all thought this was funny because I was nine years older than anyone at our table.

My brother’s small house was pretty full with him, his