My mother used to say, “No one gets out of this world alive.” Too true. If we’re lucky enough to make it past our sixties — a blessing, more often than not — we inevitably face health challenges, loss, hard-won hindsight and, hopefully, the grace to meet it all with dignity, patience and the occasional clenched fist raised toward the heavens.
According to Harvard’s massive intergenerational study, one thing is certain: if you’re in a long-term relationship, either your spouse will pass before you, or you will pass before them. There is no escaping the grief that comes when one partner is left behind.
In today’s non-traditional society, children often live far from their aging parents. As a result, the responsibility of caregiving usually falls to the healthier partner — a demanding role, especially for a husband or wife who may be grappling with their own age-related health issues.
One of the most challenging illnesses in old age is Alzheimer’s — a progressive brain disease that causes memory loss, confusion, difficulty thinking and a reduced ability to perform daily tasks. The caregiver watches a loved one disappear a little more each day, their personality shifting, while taking on more responsibilities and coping with the painful reality of losing someone gradually who is still alive.
We all cope with illness and aging in our own way. My friend Lyla Yastion, who became the primary caretaker for her husband Edward as his illness progressed and eventually led to his death, coped in a remarkably productive and extraordinary way. Throughout his decline, she kept a journal. Shortly after his passing, she immersed herself in studying the brain science relevant to his condition with professorial zeal, then she began to write a book.
“I learned a lot,” she told me. “I wanted to pass on what I had experienced and discovered to fellow caregivers.”
In the year following Edward’s death, Lyla wrote every day, merging her two greatest passions — science and spirit. A lifelong mediator and student of esoteric and religious traditions, she created a guide for others who might one day be called to walk the same difficult path.
“I reread my journal entries and made an outline of the chapters,” she said. “The chapters fell into place like a musical composition that builds to a crescendo.
Chapter 4, on delusions, was particularly difficult to write. It describes the later stages of Edward’s illness, when he began to believe Lyla was a stranger — not his wife. Writing the final chapter, titled The Final Year, was emotionally challenging, as she found herself reliving those memories as she wrote them.”
“One of the reasons I wrote this book, was to show that the soul — the spiritual essence of a person — is unaffected by the physical deterioration of the body, especially the brain.”
Although Lyla’s book, My Years as an Alzheimer’s Caregiver: Transcending Loss by Nurturing Spirit, contains technical scientific information, it is written in a way that is accessible to the general reader. Sometimes, “spirituality” can feel perfunctory, as if a practice can somehow bypass the raw pain of illness and loss. But in this book, the spiritual is grounded in reality. The details of Edward’s decline are described with honesty and clarity in the “Journal” sections.
The book is both a memoir and a detailed guide through the physical manifestations of Alzheimer’s — a heart-wrenching, progressive, incurable disease — and the spiritual resilience required to survive the shock of losing a lifelong partner.
Lyla and Edward were married for 54 years. Everyone fortunate enough to reach such a rare milestone will, eventually, face the loss of their partner. Lyla’s book is a tool, a beacon, a reckoning with a formidable truth: that life, even to its final moments, is always changing. It is only change that never changes.
Dr. Lyla Yastion will be interviewed about her book by my husband, Sam Slotnick on Wednesday, June 17, 6:30 p.m., at Elting Memorial Library in New Paltz. Both now elderly, and having lived through more than 54 years of marriage themselves, they will talk about “Transcending Loss by Nurturing Spirit.”
I hope to see you there.
Join the family! 
