A wedding ceremony and a joint bank account… That’s it. As an inexperienced and admittedly naïve newly married youth of 21 working on “adulting,” those two basics meant I was hitched, attached, dual, one. Always. Forever. Period.  Change to either of those two basic establishments never crossed my mind, and certainly, it is not what any young, naive newlywed expects. 

I am not as young or naive as I used to be, and both of those basics have held up in our married life until now.  The marriage vows are still firmly intact. But the joint bank account is another story.

Don’t jump to conclusions. I am not asking for money.

Shortly after the wedding ceremony, still starry-eyed and not yet having experienced our first married-life spat, Doug and I went to the bank to open a joint account.  I had my own bank account before marriage. I’m pretty sure Doug just used his pockets. We met the banker, dressed in the appropriately pressed bank attire, sitting behind a desk holding a logo pen. The banker asked for our ID.

In my case, the name on my ID was new. I dropped my maiden name, and Peacock proudly took Doug’s last name. I handed my ID to the banker with pride. Doug handed over his ID with some choice words, under his breath, about his picture and the DMV’s inept ability to wait until he fixed his hair.

We decided what type of account to open, signed our names on a signature card, pledged to each other to play nice in the financial sandbox, waited for the new checks to arrive in the mail, and voila! We were official. Two names on the same check representing our union. 

Okay maybe that’s a bit much… The point is, from that day forward until now, we have shared a bank account and financial decisions.  A few days ago, that changed.  Doug and I went to the bank together.  We met with a kind, finely pressed, and put-together banker.  We handed over our ID, and once again, Doug complained about the DMV’s lack of photographic experience (he really does have a mug shot for the picture).  With some clear direction and discussion, a shaky hand, and a temporary understanding of where to sign, Doug signed off our joint account. 

We left the bank, and tears rolled down my cheeks.  Melodramatic? Maybe.  But to me, it represented sole responsibility I didn’t want and fiscal powerlessness Doug didn’t want at all.  This bank outing candidly conveyed that wise daily and long-term financial decisions are departing his capability and are mine to make autonomously.

The dementia road is expensive, and there are a lot of decisions to make.  Doug and I would typically make important and expensive decisions together throughout our married life.  We would discuss the pros and cons and dialogue back and forth, sometimes laced with emotion, until we achieved a consensus.  After reaching an agreement we would proceed forward.

Those hearty discussions are now fewer and sadly more one-sided, even though there are still very necessary decisions to make.  Doug listens.  He wants to know what’s going on, and I tell him.  I am grateful for the awareness he has.  I understand the awareness he maintains is not always the case in people with FTD.  So in that, I feel lucky, and so does he.  Doug’s input, however, regarding the outcome of the decisions before us, is less articulate and sometimes tangled as the disease increasingly affects his language and problem-solving capabilities.

The next day, in the car by myself, after becoming the only name on the bank account, I got into a mad, poor me, definitely melodramatic yelling match with God.  Actually, I was the only one yelling.  He was listening.  I didn’t yell long.  His peace interrupted me, and His still small voice in my heart reminded me – Psalms 139.

Verse one begins the psalm with:

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.”

Verse 23-24 ends the psalm with:

“Search me, God and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.”

The in-between, in this psalm, is His promise to take care of us completely. Always. Forever. Period.

Doug and Karen

Have you ever been grocery shopping and walked away from your grocery cart?  Sure, most of us have. I have many times.  It is usually in the produce section.  I leave the cart parked by the grapes and walk to the apples. I make my selection and return to my waiting cart at the grapes.  No big deal.  Happens all the time.

I am pretty positive the person who lost their grocery cart in Trader Joe’s on Monday did the same thing, only to return to where it was left.  But the cart was missing.

I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me tell you what happened.

Doug and I went to Trader Joe’s on Monday.  It is a small grocery store that carries certain items we like.  We shop there about once a week.  As we approached the front entrance, Doug grabbed a grocery cart.  We walked into the store and headed to the produce section.

Doug’s dad owned a corner market when Doug was young.  His dad taught him how to select perfectly ripe and suitable produce.  It is a skill Doug learned well that I admire and often require.  (I know very little about the finesse of fresh food selection).

We were doing our married-for-a-long-time couple thing.  Without any discussion, Doug went over to the Avocados to choose the two best, and I went over and studied the lettuce in a bag.  We placed our choices in the shopping cart one by one, one at a time, with no words between us.  I glanced at my grocery list, compared it to what was in the cart, and broke the silence by asking Doug to please get some apples.  Which he did.  I pushed the grocery cart over to the chopped walnuts and then to the eggs.  Before long, I was in the chip aisle with the cart, and Doug, well, I’m not really sure where he was.

About the time I began to feel the tug of uneasiness concerning Doug’s whereabouts (after all he does have dementia, I did desert him a couple aisles over next to the apples, and he can get discombobulated) he showed up!  He met me in the chip aisle.  I had our cart, and he had… a… cart.  A shopping cart with groceries in it.

I asked him where he got the shopping cart.  Looking a little confused, he told me he got it outside in front of the store when we walked in.  I asked him if he put those things in the cart. He looked at the items (all things we don’t normally buy, except for the apples) and said, “No, I don’t think so.”

It was then that it registered with me that some poor soul was walking around the produce section looking for their grocery cart.  They were probably wondering where they left it.  They were probably trying to retrace their steps and possibly thinking, “I know I had a cart.  I’m pretty sure it was here a second ago.  Maybe I left it over there…”

Unbeknownst to them, a tall, innocent guy with dementia randomly decided their cart was his and needed it to finish the shopping.  So, he took it to the chip aisle, where I convinced him to leave it and push mine instead.

We finished shopping and checked out with no issue.  I was halfway expecting a Trader Joe’s manager to say over the intercom, “Attention all shoppers… If you stole the grocery cart from the produce section, please return it immediately…” But that didn’t happen.  I can just imagine the confused shopper, finding their cart deserted in the chip aisle and wondering how it got there.  Maybe even thinking, “Did I already come down this aisle?”  That poor soul might, for a brief moment, understand what it feels like to have dementia.

The whole scenario, from my angle, is just super funny.

And it is a peek into what it is like to be a well-liked, educated, hard-working, creative father, son, husband, and friend with dementia in a grocery store on a Monday afternoon.

September 17, 1983

“I, Doug, take you, Karen, to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part…”

“I, Karen, take you, Doug, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part…”

February 2013

“Karen, you have cancer…”

Doug had the opportunity to make good on his “… in sickness and health…” vows. I was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. He stood by me and served me through thick and thin. Hair and no hair. Chemo and surgery. Tears and hugs. Today, six years later, I can confidently declare I have beat that dreaded disease! I am well. I greatly admire Doug and all he did for me on that journey.

March 2019

Now it is my turn to serve…

It is my opportunity to make good on my “… in sickness and health…” vows to the man I love and cherish.

February 2016

We started to notice “things” weren’t quite right. I thought maybe vitamins, nutrition, or exercise were the culprits. Fluent tasks, which Doug had never struggled with before, were occasionally popping up as challenging. A flight was missed, a conversation was repeated, a card game was scrambled, a sermon was cut short… all things easily dismissed, justified, and ignored.

We decided a blood test was in order. It came back normal. We went back to normal. Time passed.

We decided a second set of blood work should be done. It came back normal. We didn’t go back to normal. Time passed.

An MRI was done. No stroke… No brain injury… No tumor… No significant brain shrinkage… Normal…

Problem-solving tasks were becoming more laborious.

Words were being repeated.

Thoughts were sometimes tangled.

Traveling directions were misunderstood. Getting lost was the result.

A darkness of anxiety lurked in the shadows, surfacing unannounced at any time, only to bury him in confusion.

Neurology was next. Dr. Lipiz joined our team. His office is a two-hour drive inland towards L.A. He came highly recommended. Testing was done…

MCI -Mild Cognitive Impairment was diagnosed, and the word dementia was ping-ponged into the conversation. I was feeling anxious at that point. Additional testing was prescribed. Again, time passed.

Neuropsychology was next. Dr Barrera at Loma Linda University joined our team, and Doug bravely undertook a series of difficult and cumbersome diagnostic assessments.

March 13, 2019

Diagnosis –

Doug, the man I vowed to love and cherish in sickness and in health… is descending down the road of early onset Frontotemporal Dementia. Sadly, he is in the Moderate stage with rapid progression. There is no cure. Our lives are changing.

2013, I started a cancer blog (Dancing with the King). It was my way to interact with family, friends, total strangers who became friends, and just total strangers.   It became a journal of the journey. A place where I could share my thoughts and feelings so others could know and take comfort, or take whatever from it, along the way.

Doug is aware of the diagnosis. He is very aware of the implications and their impact on him, us, and our family. He has asked me to blog his journey. He wants you to know what it is like to be him, me, and us. So here it is. Doug’s dementia blog: “As it is in Heaven.”

The title comes from a song by Hillsong United. The lyrics:

“Whether now or then,

Death is not my end

I know Heaven waits for me…

…And while I’m waiting,

I’m not waiting,

I know Heaven lives in me…

…Should I suffer long

This is not my home,

I know heaven waits for me…”

If you would like to follow this journey, the blog will be a regular post every other month or so. You can connect directly to it by going to www.asitisinheaven.blog. I will post it via social media as well.

We are expecting many good days, months, and even years ahead of us, and we are expecting hard ones as well. We trust God in this tapestry that is being woven. His will is our will.

If you know Doug and share fond memories, he would love to have you share them with him. A contact tab is attached to the blog where you can connect and share a memory, a thought, a laugh, or whatever you’d like. We would love to hear from you.

Living in peace one day at a time,

“…We’ll sing Holy, Holy
The earth, cries Holy
As it is, in Heaven
So let it be…”

Doug and Karen