My Husband Found New Love in a Memory Care Home

But no sooner had I begun to settle into accepting Edie in this blossoming relationship than it abruptly came to an end. Edie had a massive stroke one night and within hours was gone.  

At first, Bill seemed lost without her. His buoyant countenance collapsed, and he wandered the hallways as if searching for a solace he couldn’t name. 

Then Bill’s second girlfriend, June, showed up. 

June was nothing like Edie. She was demanding and loud, and she cursed if she met someone or something that she didn’t like.

But it was not long before June and Bill were strolling the hallways, holding hands — Bill tall and lean, June a short, doughy woman shuffling beside him. 

One day I interrupted a group of residents sitting in a circle for a group activity.  Bill was sitting in a chair next to June’s.  Their fingers were entwined. 

Spying me, June pulled Bill close.  “You can’t have him!” she screamed, furious. “He’s MY man!”

It may have been around this time that I ruefully joked to a friend that I’d begun to question Bill’s taste, a remark that told us both that I was having a harder time with Girlfriend #2 than I’d had with #1.  There were other indications, too, that I might be struggling.  One day, while driving through a rural part of our state, I saw an exit to June’s hometown.  Impulsively, like a jilted lover checking up on the “other woman,” I pulled off the highway, involuntarily chuckling at my curiosity about the place where #2 had spent her days.

The town (pop 1,354) was smaller than any Bill or I had ever lived in — with Baptist, Pentecostal, and other conservative churches, a community building, a small public library and a mom-and-pop eatery.

The Trump signs in particular disturbed the politically progressive sensibilities that Bill and I had shared, and I was gripped by a deep sense of alienation. 

This alienation frankly troubled me.  As a meditator, I had worked hard to train my mind against all manner of divides — including Red vs. Blue — to accept the underlying equality of us all.  Now here I was, face to face with unappealing biases within myself.

I saw June for the last time not long before Bill’s passing. I was in his room in the dementia unit, helping him resettle after a stay at a geriatric psych facility where he’d been sent for evaluation.

Suddenly, June spied him from the hallway and shuffled over. 

It had been two weeks since June had seen Bill. Her face was aglow — almost radiant. 

Completely ignoring my presence, she reached up on her tiptoes to stroke the side of Bill’s face. 

Bill’s eyes gazed back at hers with obvious warmth.

“You’re so handsome,” June crooned. “You’re so kind.”  Whereupon Bill lifted her hand to his lips and gently kissed it.

June had not fit my idea of someone Bill would fall for, but in that one intimate moment, the tightness in my chest uncoiled. I could no longer deny their mutual connection. Nor could I begrudge the love of this woman who — ravaged by her own suffering — took comfort, as I so often did, in Bill’s kindness.  

He’s yours now, I said silently to her, swallowing hard. I can do this.

And Bill, turning to me, lifted my own hand to his lips and gently kissed it too.