This photo typifies our life with Alzheimer’s. It also typifies our life before Alzheimer’s. It typifies life being married to Byron Horne.
Normal is relative, and we all know there are no normal relatives.
This sounds like the kind of random statement Byron would make in his best Groucho Marx impression. Except I just thought of it myself, (I think — unless I subconsciously plagiarized it). The point being, you know you’ve been married a long time when you start thinking like your spouse, especially one who sees the world as potential joke and pun material and you don’t. (I literally have a one-joke brain, but it’s a good one).
For almost 37 years it’s been like this — spontaneous, crazy, unpredictable — a great ride, barring a few bang-ups and wrong turns. I learned long ago one thing I can count on with Byron is unpredictability, but mostly in a good way. He can also iron, which I find very handy in a husband. He can sew on buttons, as well, and make the shirt on which to sew the buttons.
Also, the man possesses incredible organization skills and is disgustingly neat — which is good or we would be in trouble.
But it doesn’t seem right or fair all this would fit together in one person.
Before Alzheimer’s, Byron had an incredible memory and was one of those people no one wanted to play Trivial Pursuit with, (he’s still better than me). I don’t see how he had room in his brain for all the obscure facts he knew. I always told him it was a shame he didn’t leave room for any of the important stuff. What I didn’t admit was that I had noticed the important stuff somehow found its way in, anyway.
Oh, but there’s more. He’s always been able to play any song he’s ever heard on his guitar by ear, and he’s heard them all. He can sing, draw, act, impersonate and dance (or at least fake it very well). The thing he’s best known for, however, are his incredibly bad jokes and puns.
As I wrote this, it is, it was Halloween night, and Byron was sitting on the front porch swing, wearing his flamingo hat and waiting for unsuspecting trick-or-treaters to engage in comedic dialogue with before they would receive any candy. It was a cruel trick, but it worked.
Alzheimer’s has changed some things, but not all of them. It’s been slow progressing, so we have had time to adjust to each day’s or week’s “new normal.”
But wait a minute. We’ve never had a “normal” anyway ... so how could we have a new one? I think that’s probably a good thing. We’ll just settle for no normal whatsoever, as we always have, and not worry about it.
Normal is overrated, anyway. The world would be a better place if we’d all remember that.
— Dorothy Horne, a Longview resident, is a regular contributor to the Saturday Forum. Her blog “Glimpses of Grace” can be found at news-journal.com[1]
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