Note from Donetta:
This one’s from the deep end of the heart pool. The part where love, loss, and laughter all float around together.
If you’ve ever walked through something that broke you wide open, especially Alzheimer’s, caregiving or grief, this blog post is for you. And if you’re still trying to find your joy again… just pull up a chair. Let’s talk about how even heartbreak can grow something beautiful.
What If My Heartbreak Is Someone Else’s Healing?
I didn’t sign up for this.
When I said, “in sickness and in health,” I was picturing the flu and the occasional “man cold”. Maybe a sprained ankle or even knee surgery. Certainly not Alzheimer’s. That word wasn’t supposed to be part of our love story. It feels too cold and clinical for something that took such a tender, human toll.
But life doesn’t check with us before it flips the script, does it? It just tosses you into a plot twist, gives you a shrug, and says, “Good luck.”
When my husband was diagnosed, I thought I knew what love was. Turns out, I’d only read the introduction. Alzheimer’s showed me the whole non-fiction book; the heartbreaking, holy, laugh-when-you-want-to-cry kind of love and loyalty. The kind that sticks around even when memory doesn’t.
Some days, I would see that familiar smile, or that look like he was saying, “I know you.”
And then there were other days when I was just “that nice lady who keeps showing up with cookies.”
Grief, I learned, doesn’t wait for funerals. It begins in the everyday losses; the fading of a name, the quiet confusion, the antics out in public, the jumping out in front of moving cars, the long slow goodbye.
But even then, God slipped in humor like a life raft in a stormy sea.
There was the time my husband proudly introduced me to his “new wife” as his “nurse-slash-cook-slash-best-friend-who-keeps-showing-up.” (Accurate.)
Or when he decided to fix all the doors by taking off all the handles and locks, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about finding keys all the time. Or when he emptied all the kitchen cabinets to find his favorite cup or used all the suppositories in the medicine cabinet so that they wouldn’t go to waste. (That was a bit of a mess). And I discovered that laughter and heartbreak aren’t opposites; they’re survival partners.
There were nights I lay in the dark whispering, “Why, God?” And then trying to stay awake so that I would hear the door alarms if he tried to leave the house.
And for the longest time, it seemed as if heaven was silent. I was to the point that I was throwing my shoes under the bed just to get on my knees at least once a day to pray.
Then one night, I felt a gentle thought drifting through my heart: What if this isn’t all in vain? What if at the end of this, there is a higher calling? On this day, I remember telling a friend that I had never loved my husband more than I did at that moment.
It was then that I thought about what if this wilderness I’m stumbling through becomes the path someone else finds hope on because I dared to walk it first?
What if my heartbreak is someone else’s healing or at least a salve to the wounds that they are living?
What if the pain that burned through my plans is the same light that guides another soul out of their darkness?
Maybe this valley I was in was so that I could look at the mountain and find hope. And there I found my faith and that faith and hope is what sustained me.
I realized that these broke pieces were not an abandonment by God, but a preparation.
And if that’s true, then Lord, don’t let me waste it.
If I had to carry this cross, let its shadow stretch far enough for someone else to catch their breath. If I had to walk through fire, let me come out warm enough to comfort someone else in the cold.
Because pain isn’t purposeless. It’s a seed for growth.
And I was planting mine with tears, laughter, and the stubborn belief that joy would bloom again.
I’ve learned that God doesn’t always deliver us from the fire; sometimes He delivers others through it, because they saw the light we carried while we were in it.
My husband’s Alzheimer’s changed everything. It broke me, rebuilt me, and softened parts of me I didn’t even know had hardened.
And even now, especially here, God is still good.
Because love, real love, never forgets. It just keeps finding new ways to remember.
Finding New Joy
I thought joy would come sooner after grief; like a door that opened once the tears ran out. After all, I had been saying “good-bye” for years.
But now I know joy walks right beside grief, arm in arm, showing up in small, surprising ways. And the only way to get through it is to fully feel it, to fully hurt, to fully allow the tears to fall.
And then one day, in the smallest way, with the stealthiest entrance, joy came knocking.
I found it in the smell of coffee. The way a song suddenly takes me back to a precious memory. It’s in the laughter that sneaks out when I tell stories of burnt toast and misplaced cell phones and getting stuck in a dumpster.
Joy doesn’t erase the pain. It redeems it and makes the small annoyances of life obsolete. It turns memories into a melody, and sorrow into something sacred.
So yes, my heart broke. But it also bloomed.
Because love never left. It simply changed form and started teaching me how to live again. It helped me discover the love for myself. It helped me to give myself grace. It helped me to be open to loving again.
Even when love forgets the details, it always remembers to find the light. I want to be able to reflect that light to each of you taking the time to read this. Thank you for your love and support.
The gift for me of Alzheimer’s and loss has been to be able to appreciate every day and to live and love with gusto and joy each moment.
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