Today is my husband’s 94th birthday.

This beautiful, brilliant, creative man—my soulmate—has Alzheimer’s disease. Or maybe it’s the other way around, and Alzheimer's has him.

I want to share an intensely personal lesson I learned from him, one that I believe also applies to anyone who’s facing cancer—or who has in the past.

When I was taking care of patients at work, I had the patience of a saint. No matter how frustrating things might be on a given day, I could let it go because I knew it was “only” work.

But at home? It was a different story.

By the time I’d been asked the same question 30 times in as many minutes, I was exhausted. Stressed. And not always as patient as I wanted to be. 

Even though I knew better—even though I knew I wasn’t supposed to say things like “I already told you”—sometimes, I found myself doing it anyway. And then I’d feel SO guilty.

Then came November 22, 2020.

The day when I was doing the dishes and my husband asked me who I was — for the first time.  

The world stopped.

It was as if a light switch had flipped in my brain.

In that instant, I thought, We’re really in it now. There’s no turning back.

And somehow, in that moment, something inside me shifted. I finally, fully accepted that my life partner was no longer in control of anything. And there was no point in being angry with him or his disease anymore.

With that acceptance came infinite patience—and the ability to forgive anything and everything. It allowed me to accept him as he is now, and to be able to interact with him as he is now, instead of struggling because I can't have him as he was. And to accept the disease that had invaded our lives.

Acceptance doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean saying that what’s happened to you—or what someone else said or did—is okay. It means acknowledging the truth of your situation, and choosing not to let it eat you up inside.

It’s what frees you to focus on what you can control: your reactions, your mindset, and how you feel about yourself and others.

I had to let go of the version of him I had been trying to cling to so desperately.  

I had to let go of the hope that things would go back to the way they were.

Sound familiar yet?

Because just as I had to accept what happened to my husband—and to our family—I had to accept what happened to me (and my family) when I was diagnosed with cancer. And doing that has made all the difference in the world.

My husband, before Alzheimer’s, used to say, “Everybody has pain. Suffering is optional.”

How we perceive our reality shapes how we live it.

If you’re struggling to accept what’s happened to you, please reach out. You don’t have to go through it alone.

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