Historian Cared for Her Ex Through Lewy Body Dementia

The couple divorced in 2010 after 32 years. She calls the split "horribly painful" and says it left enough anger and resentment between them to create a gulf of silence. Lee later had two committed relationships with women, which she says deepened the estrangement.

A slow reconnection

The two had almost no contact until their twin sons' weddings in 2016 forced them together. Conversation was awkward at first, then slid back into familiar patterns. They even danced together.

In 2019, shortly before his 78th birthday, Lee was diagnosed. His girlfriend told the sons and the author she could not take on his care. The author calls that an enormously wise and loving act that helped focus the family's concern.

She writes: "Rather to everyone's surprise, including mine, it turned out that I was still part of Lee's family."

A difficult patient

The author describes Lee as hard to help. He held an Ivy League doctorate, had a terrible temper and drank too much. He dominated conversations and was always sure he was right.

He was also charming and fun, she says. His diagnoses frightened him, though, and he saw enemies everywhere. He believed doctors had misdiagnosed him, that the state had unjustly stopped him from driving, and that his sons were trying to end his romance and stop him wintering in Arizona. Yet she says he would listen to her.

She says she repeatedly talked him out of moving from Wisconsin to Arizona. She also began thinking about relocating to Minneapolis, to be closer to the grandchildren and help with his care.

Before she moved, she spent three weeks in Lee's house, clearing it for sale. His library filled four rooms. She made endless trips to charity stores with his clothes and household goods.

The hardest job, she writes, was going through his paper files page by page. Lee had kept copies of financial documents, including personal checks, since their separation. They were mixed with 50 years of research notes and teaching materials.

At the service, she says, she was ordering flowers and preparing brisket rather than mourning. She had, she writes, been grieving Lee for a very long time.