SoulStirred: Stories of Growth And The Human Experience

Episode 6 - You've Got a Friend, with Pam Coffey

Welcome lovely listeners to SoulStirred, stories of growth and the human experience. I'm Emily Garcia and I'm Casey Clark. We will be your guides on this journey.

We are so glad you are here. Each week we'll come together, sometimes with other incredible thinkers, creators, and adventurers to generously share stories of self-discovery, recovery, triumph, and what it means to live a life on purpose. No matter where you are in your own journey, connection is here for you at SoulStirred.

Settle in, take a deep breath in, and let's inspire each other. Welcome to SoulStirred. Welcome SoulStirred listeners.

We're so glad you are here. Today we are welcoming Pam Coffey, professionally certified coach and certified Dare to Lead facilitator. However, today Pam is here not to talk about her experience as a coach.

She's here to tell you about her dear friend, Jane Marie. Her friend Jane Marie passed away from Alzheimer's in 2022. Today we're highlighting Pam and Jane Marie's friendship as a follow-up to our previous episode with Kate Adams and her book, Bedside Witness.

We are going to explore more about what it's like to be a caretaker or care partner for someone who is experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's and the inside experience. SoulStirred listeners, grab your tissue. We're about to take you on a heartfelt journey of friendship until the end.

Thanks for being with us today, Pam. I'm especially excited to have you for lots of reasons, and most especially because this today's episode highlights for us one of the first connections formed by SoulStirred and through SoulStirred. I know that your story with Jane Marie, who I also knew personally, is a very precious thing.

We appreciate you being willing to come here today and share it with us and our listeners for the sake of connection. Tell us about Jane Marie. Thank you for having me.

It's a delight to talk about her. I feel very honored to have this opportunity to talk about such a special person. Let's start with the fact that she passed away a year and a half ago, March 31st.

It was 2022, which is hard to believe. There's not a day that has gone by that I don't think of her. She was just such an innocent, kind, generous, thoughtful, caring person.

That's how I've always known her. We met through our work at the Environmental Protection Agency. I was a training officer in 1994 for the EPA here in Denver.

Jane Marie had the same position in the Philadelphia office for EPA. She called me one day and said, keep this on the down low. My husband wants to come to college in Colorado.

I just wondered, is there any possibility that you think I could get a position in HR at EPA in Denver? HR, Human Resources, EPA, Environmental Protection Agency. I put my feelers out and we were able to get her a detail in the Denver office. Building our telework program, if you can imagine that.

Doesn't that seem like old news? Yeah, what year was it? Here she comes and she just did an amazing job. She wrote policy, she figured out logistics, she got buy-in. She just knocked it out of the park as she did everything that she put her hands on.

She was very proud to describe herself as a perfectionist. She did everything with excellence. She was very bright.

She was very creative. She built relationships with people and she worked hard. She cared about her job and she was proud of how good she was.

We worked together. Once the telework policy was in place and some flexible work schedules came into place, we ended up being able to have every other Friday off together. We spent every other Friday off together.

Our favorite thing was to go to Little Richie's Pizza and go to a movie. We both shared our passion for Diet Pepsi. It was mine; Diet Coke was hers.

Pizza and movies, that's what we did. And our friendship just blossomed. I loved being with her.

If you had the privilege of knowing her and being her, you would have felt that. It was warmth and acceptance. That would be my sub name for Jane Marie, was acceptance.

She felt like loving kindness to me. Like one of those people who didn't just talk about it, but actually it felt like being in it, in her presence. Yeah, she was just so gentle.

No matter what you told her, whatever I told her, she met with acceptance or she would help me see it in a way that made me feel better about it. I loved the intimacy of our conversations. She was a cheerleader for people.

She was a champion. She became a coach and she was really good at it and served a lot of people. How lucky are you to have had a friend like that? Oh yeah.

She was such a gift in my life. That's how I still hold her and how I feel about her. Share with our listeners the evolution of your friendship and what ultimately came to be.

Jane Marie's great request of you is what I would call it, in my opinion. Yeah. We stayed on our pattern and lived life together and shared all of the challenges that life brings, supporting each other through divorce and the birth of our children.

I had my son Ben in 2000 and she had her daughter Kate in 2000, seven weeks later. That meant we got to share our pregnancies together. Guess what we did every other Friday? Pizza.

Pizza and a movie. As we got bigger and bigger. Yeah.

Those are major life events to share. She was just the best person I could think of to share it with. 2011, our children are 11.

Let me just mention that I have another child because when my daughter Kate listens to this, if I don't mention her, she'll be like, thanks a lot, mom. You made it sound like you had one kid. Hi, Katelyn.

Yeah. So we were out to dinner one night. I think we were at a conference at the Gaylord in Baltimore.

We loved to go to I Can Do It conferences together with Marianne Williamson and Louise Hay and Robert Holden. That was an event. Wherever they were having it, whatever city, we went.

I think this year it happened to be in Baltimore at the Gaylord on the National Harbor. We were sitting there and we went to pay the bill. She pulled a Ziploc bag out of her purse with all of her money in it.

I said, Jean Marie, why is all your money in a Ziploc bag? She said, well, I don't know. That's just what I decided to put it in. I'm like, huh, okay.

She takes it out, puts it away. The receipt came and to put the tip on it, well, first of all, who pays cash for dinner? So that was one thing. I was like, let's put this on credit cards.

But she struggled with figuring out the tip. She's like, Pam, look at this. Will you just do it? I said, okay, yeah, I'll do it.

But it was just a little red flag for me. That's not normal for her. Then we went on and a few minutes later, she's like, where's my money? Where's my money? I can't find my money.

What did I do with my money? I said, you just had it in a little baggie that you took out and I saw you put it back in your purse. You can't find it in your purse. So we looked and there it was.

Oh, there it is. There it is. Okay.

So we move on and we're staying in the hotel. I see her by the bathroom. The sink was right across from the bathroom door and there was a mirror in between it.

She could hardly figure out which door was the bathroom. She was just kind of like, huh. It was a very brief thing that time.

There were other times where the mirror became a much bigger issue. But I just kind of watched, she figured it out, didn't need to say anything, but it was just the very beginning. And when I look back, that's what I realized was like the first thing that I started to notice.

And there were more things that I noticed. She and her daughter came to visit me at the time I lived in Washington, DC. And we met for a sandwich in the afternoon and we had a big, long, in-depth conversation about where we would meet the next day.

They were going to come to my house for dinner. Should we meet at the Metro stop? Do you want me to give you a ride? How should we do this? And so we figured it all out. We meet at 430, the White Flint Metro stop, and I'll pick you up and take you to my house for dinner, etc.

So the next morning I'm in my office, the phone rings and it's Jane Marie. Hi, Jane Marie. How are you? I'm good.

I just wanted to call and figure out what our plans are for tonight. Where are we meeting? What are we doing? I just paused. I said, well, Jane, we talked about this last night.

Remember you and me and Kate and we're going to meet at White Flint? And oh, yeah, that's right. That's right. We did.

Oh, you know, just must have had a brain cramp, you know. But again, I'm like, that is just so not like her. I think the biggest thing was how these things were so not like her.

Right. And so after a few things like this, I picked up the phone with our mutual, very dear friend, Richard Archuleta, who also worked at EPA. And I'm like, Richard, have you noticed anything different about Jane Marie lately? And he's like, well, yeah, I have noticed a couple of things, but tell me what you're noticing.

So we start talking and I said, you know, I don't know that it's time for me to say anything to her or bring it up, but I'm really concerned. And just keep an eye on it. Let's talk again, you know, and not share it with anybody else.

You know, we're not trying to go public with this, but I needed somebody else to have eyes on this and see. And as time went on, he would say, you know, we were doing a workshop, which she was a wonderful trainer, and she would lose her place. Where were we? What page were we just doing? What were we talking about? Again, not like her.

And as things progressed, as they did, you know, she did a lot of work for the senior management team and she would do memos where sentences weren't completed and things of that nature. So we saw it, you know, go over time. And I did start having conversations with her.

And I said, you know, Jane Marie, I'm just noticing some things that just don't seem like you. Are you noticing anything? She's like, well, you know, I had that sinus surgery. I think it must just be a result of that.

You know, I'm just going to give it some time because that just needs to really heal. And she started coming up with justifications like she was noticing the things, but she had reasons for it. Right.

Like, I'm sure it's just that I'm sure it's just that. Such relevance to like the human experience there, where we want to tell ourselves a story that can prevent us feeling the grief that might be on the other side of the truth. All the stages of change, which match the stages of dying.

You know, let's be in denial first. This is total denial. Right.

And so I kept talking to her and finally I said, you know, why don't we go see a doctor and know for sure if this is something or not something, you know, and I said, I think we should just go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and go to the best and see what's what. And if it's nothing great, then we know it's nothing. And if it is something, then the earlier we get it treated, you know, the better things will be.

So she agreed. Could we interject here? What a good friend. What a good friend to have the presence of mind and be paying attention to noticing the subtle changes in her behavior and her thinking and then to love her enough to be willing to help her see the truth of what's changing and then to resource her.

And what I know from my own relationship with you is that you also sort of walked beside her every single step of that way. I just I have to comment on it because I think I feel even some like envy around it to be loved by another person who is not your intimate partner or parent the way that you love friends and especially Jane Marie. What a gift.

Yeah, well, and she had gotten divorced by now and so was living a single life. She had her daughter, Kate, who is 11 when this started to happen, which talk about her tender years, going through her teenagers through this and having divorced. Now my mom is declining.

Yeah. Well, my mom's starting to do some different things. Yeah.

Yeah. So we decided we would go to Mayo Clinic and get an official diagnosis. And I just want to say, you know, she'd gotten divorced and she had an 11-year-old daughter who was also my goddaughter and her family who she was very close to, dearly loved her mother and her mother adored her and had four younger brothers that all lived in Philly.

And so it never entered my mind that I wouldn't go with her. It just was like, OK, this is what needs to happen next. This is what we're going to do.

We are going to do this. And so we did. And off we went.

And as we were off the airport and driving to the hotel and preparing for the appointments the next day, she said to me in her quiet way, you know, Pam, if they tell me I have something horrible like Alzheimer's, I will do my best to try to accept it. And I don't think either one of us wanted to say that word out loud. It's like saying the big C word.

You just don't want to speak it into existence. And I just said, well, Jane, it will be really hard to hear that if that's what they say. And we'll stay on this journey.

You know, we'll figure it out and deal with whatever we have to deal with. We, we, we. And I meant the we, you know, like I just couldn't imagine.

You know, it's our friendship. We were soul sisters. She didn't have a sister.

I felt like I was the sister she didn't have. And it's kind of like marriage or long friendships. It was like for better or for worse.

You know, how could I not be her friend anymore when she's sick? You know, so we went to Mayo and we went to a lot of different appointments in a short time that we were there. They were very thorough. Lots of questions, lots of testing.

And the words that they said before we left were, you have symptoms consistent with somebody who has early onset Alzheimer's. So they don't actually say you have this, you have symptoms consistent with somebody who has this. And so we left and I feel like the journey had already begun before that.

And it felt like that might've been the official start of the trip. Yeah. At least in her mind, she heard it from somebody that she found credible and believed.

And it was awful. And I think she went through a, you know, like lambasted into another phase of grief and bargaining and sadness. You just couldn't understand why me? Why me? Why me? Why me? What did I do? What did I do? And, you know, no one deserves it.

Nobody does anything to deserve that horrible disease. It just was. They have done a lot of research to try and figure out why people end up with early onset Alzheimer's.

And like you did a great job of holding that space for her and allowing her to grieve during that time and then help her move forward. Yeah. And we just had to take as much time as it took in that phase two.

And she just kept living her life, kept working, kept doing her best. And as she would. And time went by and we could see things progressing.

And, you know, we got to the point where I didn't really feel that she was safe living on her own. And I came in touch with the resource manager who like knew all the resources that were out there to help people. So she helped me connect with caretakers that would come during the day and maybe help her bathe or shower a few days a week.

And we did that for a period of time. And also throughout this, it came the time where she had to leave her job because she was making so many mistakes at work that were not good and people were noticing. And so another friend of ours, Kathy Ayala, God bless her, helped Jane Marie figure out the process for processing for disability retirement.

And so she got that. So that's a gift. Working for the government was a total gift because she ended up with a check that we knew would come every month for the rest of her life that was to pay her bills.

And so God bless that she could have the funding resources. I don't know what people do that wouldn't have that to be able to pay her mortgage and etc. So another significant chapter in the story of Jane Marie's life and process and journey was that her brother came to live with her to keep her safe when the time came that we didn't feel like it was okay for her to be alone all the time.

She was starting to do things like put orange juice in her oatmeal in the morning instead of the milk. And I didn't know what if she left a stove burner on or who knows what. And so her brother, Michael, generously agreed to come and just live there.

He had another job during the day and I was able to bring caretakers in during the day and then he'd get home at night and make her dinner and help her get to bed, etc. And Jane Marie's mother came to visit from Philly and was asleep on the couch. Michael's room was downstairs, Kate was in her room, Jane Marie was in her room.

Michael comes barreling up the stairs screaming, Mom, my head, my head, my head is killing me and proceeds to have an aneurysm burst in his brain and dies on the living room floor. And it's just hard to get your head around that that happened and the shock of that and the tragedy of that. And that was Jane Marie's caretaker.

And so Michael and I had had lots of conversations. We stayed in constant touch with each other and we had agreed that she was getting to the place where she couldn't really be left home alone. She begged us to not have her move from her house.

She wanted that more than anything to stay in her home. And I think that's a common thing. But she also had no partner.

And Michael and I said, let's, you know, what's the next stage going to be? Where is a good place for her to live when she can't live here anymore? Because funding full-time care for someone 24 hours a day is an astronomical amount of money. And we didn't know how much longer she'd live. We didn't know if she'd have enough to maintain that.

And who would it be? It just felt big. And so Angels of Mercy, I tell you, they just kept appearing when I needed them. But I found a woman who had taken four or five homes, four at the time, I think, and she and her husband had renovated homes and neighborhoods, ranch-style houses.

And on the hallway where the bedrooms were, they made them into eight bedrooms so they could have eight patients living there. And then they hired a couple who would live in the lower part of the house to be there upstairs to take care of the patients all day long and all of their needs. And nurses would come to visit.

Every time J. Marie needed a doctor's appointment, I would take her, you know, so doctors didn't necessarily come there. But she had full-time care in a small, warm, comfortable, beautiful home environment. And that was perfect for her because she was not a person that was going to thrive in a facility with a hundred or more people.

It just wasn't going to work for her. So she got personal attention. They knew her.

I just felt so blessed. And I was really clear. I wanted J. Marie to make as many decisions for herself as she could while she could.

So that I wasn't trying to decide for her. Let me know what you want and I will support your decisions for the rest of your life. Which I would think might be an important attribute of your relationship.

Like in a way that a partner might be less able to be objective. It's another gift of a friend to be able to continue to like promote that autonomy for as long as possible. Like you don't necessarily have the same things to personalize in the relationship as an intimate partner might, you know? Right.

Well, the intimate partner might be thinking about the intimate partner's needs too. Correct. Yeah.

Exactly. My intention was I wanted J. Marie to feel in control of her life as much as she could for as long as she could. I want you to make the decisions about you.

I want you to tell me what you want to eat and where you want to eat and where you want to live and who you want to take care of you and who you don't and who your doctors are. I found her a dentist. Just a quick story.

I found her a dentist that was very close to the home where she was living. If we leap ahead a little bit to where she ended up living. She just like threw a fit.

No, I have a dentist. I have the dentist I've been going to for 25 years. I don't want a different dentist.

I want that dentist. And I was like, all right, that's really clear. I think we need to honor that.

So, guess what? Guess what dentist she went to? Yeah, hers. And so, things like that. Yeah.

And that was important for a person to get to hold intact their personhood for as long as possible when their face was so much loss. Yeah. Yeah.

And such an independent woman. So clear about what she wanted and how things were going to be and how they weren't. And so, that was a big one.

So, I was like, all right, off to Lakewood we go, which was much further away than where this dentist was. But it was clear and it was twice a year. And so, that's what we're going to do.

It was just a big thing to manage another person's life. So, because she had all the appointments and needs that I had. She needed to go to this kind of doctor and that kind of doctor and her physical and her blood work and her Alzheimer's doctor and her dentist.

And she needed clothes and she wanted to go out and have dinner with people and all those things. And so, the next phase, I would say, was I took her to an attorney. It was an attorney that she had hired herself previously, I think, for her divorce.

And I wanted her to see her and get all of her paperwork in order while she knew the decision she was making there, too. So, she could pick her personal rep. She could pick her medical power of attorney.

She could pick her financial power of attorney. And she could, you know, all the roles. And so, we did that, too.

So, that was a smart thing to have in place. So, now it's time to sell the house, which was traumatic. This was not a small thing.

She was very upset. She did not want to move. She did not want to leave her home.

Why? Why? Why? You know, and and then Michael passed and then it really became time that she needed to move. And so I was glad we had done the work and taken her to see the places and meet the people. And Michael agreed our choice.

So that felt good to me. And again, I'm communicating with her mom and her aunt Margie and her cousin Kathleen, who was a big financial supporter, big emotional supporter. Kathleen made sure she got to go.

The January got to go see an acupuncturist, you know, regularly. And her mom and others made sure that she had an Uber driver that she knew that would take her to those appointments. And Kathleen would fund those things.

Her mom would make sure that he stopped to give her a diet soda on the way home. That was a big thing. I see diet soda anytime I was anywhere within her neighborhood.

It was an icy diet soda. So we so trying to also give her some of her favorite things in life. Right.

So the bottom drawer in her room at this house was filled with her favorite trees. So she didn't have to ask people for them to go and get them, you know. So things like that meant a lot to I think that the little things became the big things.

So so she's in this house now. And that was supposed to be the place she lived till end of life. And life life went on.

And that's what became the pattern was going to visit her there. Her mom would send clothes. I was able to find a woman, Mary Archer, who what she did for people was arranged group outings.

So there was a van that would come and pick up six or seven people on Fridays. They'd take them to the museums or to the park, always out for a meal. And Jean Marie would live for those days, you know, get me out of this house and let me see some other life and let me order what I want for dinner.

And it was a godsend. And Kathleen would fund that. So I'm trying to make a point here of the team of people that supported her.

And the communication was part of my role was to make sure I kept them up to speed on what her status was, how she was progressing, what her needs were. And, you know, her mom would come visit too. And, and her Aunt Margie would come to visit and Kate would come down from college.

With even with that, Emily and Casey, it wasn't enough. She had more hours and more days in her room in that house without people, because as much as you would try to make time and do all and I tried to make time and the people would visit, there was still a lot of time that she was watching TV or listening to music or doing her own thing. And I hated that.

I just, I still think, God, should I have gone more? Could I have found more time to be there? Could I have, you know, it's really hard that part. Because I had, you know, I had a family too, and a full-time job and all the things, right. So, there's challenges in there.

And anybody listening to this, I want to hear them be acknowledged that it's hard, and I get it. You know? How do you think her family was able to accept that you were a part of the team? What was it that, what is it about you or what is it that happened that made her family go, all right, Pam is a part of this team that is serving our loved one? Mm hmm. You know, in some ways, it's sensitive to talk about that, because I know that her mom, in particular, really struggled with that, thinking that maybe she should be the one who is there.

And, and probably, although grateful to me and express that 100 times over every time we talked, I love you, you're an angel, what would we do without you? So much gratitude. And I think so much guilt too, like, I'm the mother, I should be there, or some one of our family members should be there. My commitment to Jane Marie was to honor what Jane Marie wanted.

And Jane Marie was very clear to me, I don't ever want my mom to have to be my caretaker, not my full-time caretaker. And I want to stay in Colorado. And so, you know, she adored her mother, and they spent a lot of time together, her mom called her every single day, more than once on many days.

But that's a big commitment to that we're talking years, and her mom never missed a day. And, you know, it was hard to be in Philly, you know, when that's your baby girl, you know, so they just were very appreciative of me, very thankful. I had many people in my life asked me why, why do you do this? You know, you're not even family.

I said, well, I'm family. You know, I know, I'm not a relative. And Jane Marie and I feel like, you know, we have a sisterhood.

And how could I not do it? I never, it was never, I don't know how to explain this. But to me, it was never a question in my mind of not doing it. It's just like the journey started.

And you don't jump out of the car. There's no way I could not live with myself. If I just said, you know what, I've had enough.

I don't know who's doing it next, but I'm out. You know, I just, I loved her. And I still love her.

It was about eight and a half years from diagnosis to when she passed, which interestingly, is what they say the average is for early onset Alzheimer's. And I had such a learning experience and an emotional rollercoaster ride watching her progression. Because I think the saddest part is that you lose your friend while they're still alive.

So that was hard to watch. Yeah. And there were many moments of, of joy and laughter and fun times along the way too.

And she was so unique in being so accepting. Jane Marie's Alzheimer's presented in a very unique way. And all the people with dementia, there's so many different kinds of dementia.

It's not all Alzheimer's. And even with Alzheimer's, she wasn't a person that forgot who I was ever. She knew who her mother was and her closest family members to tell her last breath.

And so we had the gift of that, that she never did not know who I was. In fact, she called for me all the time at her home, you know, get Pam, get Pam, ask Pam. And that was a real comfort.

How her disease presented was visually, she never went blind, but her, her spatial thing shrunk. She started to lose weight drastically because she couldn't see her silverware and her food in front of her. And they didn't have the resources to just have people sit and feed her every meal.

And that was shocking to me when I noticed her weight was dropping so fast. And so we had to deal with that and try to come up with things like giving her insurer drinks. But then that causes diarrhea at some point and stomach upset.

So then what do you do? So there was always challenges like that. But we went to see this eye specialist and, you know, they would ask, so how are you doing Jane Marie? And she said, my life is so great. And I'm sitting in the corner of the room, listening to this.

I'm thinking you've got to be kidding me. You know, who in her situation would describe their life? Great. She said, are you kidding me? People cook all my meals.

They clean for me. I don't have to do a bit of cleaning. I get the best health care.

My bills are paid. How could life be any better? She said, and I have this wonderful team of people. And that make my life work like that, like her over there.

And she, she'd look at me and point because she knew I was sitting in the corner of the room. And then she would start to cry because she was so grateful and so appreciative. It was just her, her emotions would get so full with gratitude.

And I just thought, how could I have a better person in my life to teach me gratitude if she can be grateful for her life. So that was just one of the many, many gifts, many, many gifts, but again, her friendship was to you. Yes.

Yeah. It was moments like that. And then there were moments where we were driving down Dan shits and, and she would, you know, she had, she started to have hallucinations and this, this happened pretty, pretty early on for a while.

She thought her room was getting smaller and she thought maybe people were trying to take her things and why are they trying to make my room smaller? And there's always carpenters in here. And she would swear that she heard pounding at night in her room. Somebody like beating a hammer on, on the floor of the ceiling.

And, and, you know, when we'd talk to the people at inches, I would explain that and they would increase her meds gradually. Um, but this one day we were driving down to the doctor's appointment and she said, Pam, I've got something I've got to talk to you about. I'm like, okay, what is it? And she said, there's these men, they've been coming in my room.

They want me. And I'm like, they want you? Like, how do you mean they want you? She said like, they want me, Pam. Like they're, they're good looking.

They, you know, I, I, you know, my intuition's always been great. So, I'm not wrong about this. I've said, yeah, you've always had really good intuition, you know? So, tell me about them, you know, what are they like? Well, they're really kind and they're really friendly.

And, you know, they're flirt with me. And I said, well, that sounds like fun, you know? So, you know, so tell me more about them. So, what I learned is it made no sense at all to try to tell her that this was not really happening, you know, with any of her hallucinations.

It's like trying to be rational with somebody who's irrational. It just doesn't work. So instead, I would just jump into the fantasy with her and we would have such a good time and I would enjoy it.

The conversation was great, you know? And so, her concern was, so what do I do about this? Like if they asked me out, should I go? And I said, well, heck yeah. Why wouldn't you go? You know, if you like them and they like you and they want to have a good time, why not? Yeah. I thought that too.

And, you know, she goes, but Pam, and I said, they want to have sex with you. Well, yeah. I mean, that's what they're really going for.

And I said, well, then go for it. Why wouldn't you? You know, I mean, look at Jane, you're almost 16. Why the heck not? You know, if they're nice and whatever you're available.

And so, um, she's like, well, you know, I've never had sex before. And I was like, well, really? I said, because you have your daughter, Kate, I'm pretty sure you have. And she's like, oh yeah, that's right.

I did. I did. I had to have done that.

Um, and so we cleared that up and then we just kept talking about a little bit more. And she said, you know, I knew you would know what to do. I knew I just had to talk to you about it.

And it's good. She's clapping her hands, which she always did when she had the answer, you know, or had the, the punctuation on the sentence, she'd clap her hands. And she was just giddy about the, these men and the fact that she was going to go out with them and have sex with them.

And so it was moments like that too, that it was just pure joy and laughter and fun. And, um, and of course, you know, we had that same conversation many times, you know, and I knew we would, and we just played it out the same way every time. And it was fine.

And so, so her memory was going in that she may not have remembered that we talked about that, or she may have had a momentary blip about things in the past, but she never did not know who her people were. And she never lost her ability to share her emotions. Her emotions were always present.

And she knew even towards the very end, um, the house that she had lived in that we thought would be her end-of-life home. Um, they were unable to keep her safe anymore. They, she would stand up and get out of bed and then just fall, you know, hit the floor.

There was a time where we needed to have her in a wheelchair because she couldn't see the walls anymore. And she'd bump into them. Um, and so they called me one day and said, we hate this because we totally plan on her being here till end of life.

Um, but we just don't have the resources. We feel like to keep her physically safe. Um, and Jane Marie lost her ability to form her words.

So she would garble her sounds and stuff. And if you knew her really well, like as I did, I could kind of decipher and translate. Um, but it became harder and harder and it was so frustrating for her.

And, um, sometimes she would swear because she, you know, knew she was trying to get something out and she couldn't get it out. So that was the good and the bad. Like it was good that she still had the wherewithal to know that.

And it was hard on her because she knew what was happening to her. You know, sometimes there's a gift, I think in Alzheimer's where people go to this happy place or this content world, and they don't even realize what all is going on, but she, she did. And so, um, that was good news and bad news.

It was, you know, hard. Um, so anyway, we moved her, I found, well, the place where she lived, recommended this place just a couple blocks away, um, where she would get, you know, full-time skilled nursing care and they would help her transition through to the end of life and surrounded by beautiful hospice people, the chaplain, and, um, they all each had their different roles and they would explain to us what was going to happen, which felt very comforting. Um, Jane Marie was aware that something drastically changed.

She was not happy about it. And from the minute she got to this new place where they treated her really well, she made up her mind. I think that she was done because I went and bought her her favorite chocolate donut gems and her favorite drinks.

And she would bite her teeth together, not let me put any food in. She just made up her mind. I was done.

Nothing's going in. And it would be time for dinner. I remember, you know, where she could hardly speak and form clear words, um, her asking me a question and I couldn't get it.

I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't know what you're asking. And it was this complete moment of articulation where she said, what time is it? And it was that clear and that frustrated.

And it came out like, wow. And so there were moments of shock to where things like that would happen, but it was very clear to me that she decided that she was done. And for her to have the control over that in some way felt really, really good.

Um, and she actually passed away, um, 10 days from the day we moved her into that home. And, um, her mom was there and her daughter had just stopped in. She had been in town for a dentist appointment from Fort Collins, where she went to college and said, I'm just going to stop and see my mom.

And she, so she was just there as God would have it. And her brother flew in and, um, she loved her brother, Brian, and they were all there for her last breath. I was on my way to a hockey game when I got the call that they said, we cannot believe what's happened in the last 24 hours that she's been from where she was.

We thought it could be a couple of weeks. And now we think it could be ours. And I'm like, well, do I need to come over there now? And they're like, I think I'd come over here.

And so, uh, I had my husband driving me over and dropped me off with my abs Jersey on. And, um, when I walked in the door, she had just, she had just passed. And so that worked out great too, that she was surrounded by her mom and her daughter and her brother.

And then I was there to, um, you know, say my goodbyes to which, you know, I had said all along, we were very clear. We had a great, great moment in her room. Her, her joy at the end was just listening to music.

And we had her Alexa going all day long with her favorite singers, Barbra Streisand and Michael Buble and, um, Barry Manilow and Carole King. And, um, and I would, I would sit with her and we would dance, you know, with her sitting in the chair and she knew the rhythms and she would have her own way of expressing that. And our last song together was, you know, you've got a friend by Carole King and that's a treasured memory too.

So what a beautiful, beautiful experience you had with her. There's, you know, the joy and suffering that go together in life. And from the way you describe her, she had such joy and such suffering.

And the crazy thing about life is you can't have one without the other, you experience it all. And so even as you described the day she died and the joy and being able to have her family there and the, you know, the last song you had with her, and there's so much joy in that, but then there's the suffering, the grief and losing someone you love so deeply. So thank you for sharing this story.

As you were talking about it, I was reflecting on your description of, you know, she knew who you were, she knew her home and that there's so many different kinds of dementia. When we had Kay Adams on, she talked about dozens of types of dementia and Alzheimer's and that it looks different for every person. And you had such a unique experience with her.

I'm curious how in the end you were able to move, not even in the end, throughout the journey and in the end, how you were able to emotionally handle all of it and learn from the experience and then heal from the loss. Can you tell us about that? I think I just felt so strong in our relationship and how good it was. And it's, it's also that, you know, push and pull of not wanting her to suffer anymore.

Not that she would have said she was suffering, but clearly her quality of life was, you know, a one on the scale of 10. And so you don't want that to continue either. She, especially when she knew what it was like, you know, and she's spending her days, you know, every waking moment, listening to music and not really being able to enjoy the things that we all enjoy with food and going out and doing all the things she loved.

And so, it was also an acceptance of what the end was. And so there was this feeling of waiting for the end, and trying to make her life as comfortable as possible until that moment. But at some point, it just becomes excruciating for everybody.

And so, I think there's a gosh, gratitude's probably too strong of a word, but a settling or an acceptance or trying to call on your faith to think she'll be in a better place. So that when it goes, it's like, okay, finally, you know, this journey is, you know, we've arrived, if you will. And so, there's a peace in that.

And there's a relief. And, you know, all those things. And of course, we had to move through the part of, you know, the pain, I think I felt the most heartache for her mother, to have to lose another child and watchers go through that.

I just I guess I think the the thing then is this calling on your faith system, whatever that is, and your spirituality, and Jane Marie's was strong, and she and I shared our belief system. And so, I think that helped too. And just honoring her and what a great life she had, and what a great friendship we had, and what a gift she was.

I know for you, Pam, one of the things that I think brought your heart to peace after she was gone was the celebration of life. Yeah, that you held for her at her church, maybe ask a little bit about that. She loved her church, the mile high Church of Religious Science and was a member and a faithful attendee.

And she and I went there many, many times together. And I still go there too. And I can't be in there without thinking about her and being there with her.

And the beautiful memorial service that they helped us host there, it was no questions asked where it needed to be and who needed to be there and the music that needed to be played. And it could not have been a better celebration of who she was, and her presence there. And that felt very satisfying to me to know that we honored her and to know that she was there.

And I just kept thinking how much she would love what we were doing and who spoke her friends who, you know, I asked from EPA, could you would you be willing to share a story? And they did. And they told the best stories about her and their experience with her that really reflected her and who she was. And what the minister said about her to the female pastor, it was just perfect.

It was just great. It was just great. And Jane Marie loved to be on the stage.

She was very comfortable dancing in front of groups, singing in front of groups. She was completely comfortable as a public speaker, as the, you know, giving a eulogy, writing a eulogy for others. She liked to be the center of attention that way.

And so she would have loved being the center of attention at the center of attention at her memorial service. It was all about her. It was all good.

And the music was good. And her cousin, Kathleen, hosted everybody who came for a dinner at Olive Garden, which was Jane Marie's favorite restaurant. And so I just felt like we honored her in all of the ways that she would have loved.

And so it was such a nice, nice ending, a nice celebration for her, a good sendoff, great sendoff. Yeah. Wow.

That's beautiful. You could tell her personality was there. And in my mind, no doubt that she was there.

Yes. She was there experiencing it and loving it. She was sitting on the altar in like the priest chair, you know, if you can imagine like the main dude.

She was there just grinning and probably laughing at the stories and, you know, doing her clap and her hands in the air. Yeah. The whole thing.

I could just picture her. Yeah. Center of attention.

Thank you so much for sharing this, the precious, sacred story of your relationship with Jane Marie with us and our SoulStirred audience. It's really, she really had a friend in you. She did.

Yeah. Thank you for inviting me to talk about her and honor her. She was a beautiful person.

It's one of those rare gifts in life. If you can have that experience. Yes.

Yeah. Well, thank you to our SoulStirred listeners who have stayed with us and listened to this amazing story. We're so glad you've been here.

We will look forward to the story that we have for you next week, and we hope you all take care. Take good care of yourselves and each other. Bye-bye.

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of SoulStirred Stories of Growth and the Human Experience. We hope our stories have touched your heart and sparked reflections in your own journey. Remember, while we are therapists, we are not your therapist, and this podcast is not a substitute for therapy.

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