03755 - Hanover, N.H.
Sherry Lornitzo, 70, lives in Hanover Terrace Healthcare, a care home where residents with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are cared for. Her husband, Frank, 81, of Bradford, visits her every week. The following is an edited interview with Frank.
She was looking at me in that certain way from across the room. It was snowing outside, a light snowfall, and I went over and said something about taking a walk. That’s how we met.
In September, just when it was getting chilly again, I asked her to marry me. She said a funny thing, kind of like a bargain, that at our age we shouldn’t say anything about love. We were married that year in Milwaukee, on November 17, 1994.
It wasn’t until a few months later, after we moved to Vermont, that I began seeing the symptoms. She started saying I was hiding her eyeglasses. Then she started to complain about being afraid of me, scared of a lot of things. She would see insects all over the ceiling and want to get up on something to swat them. She would come in the middle of the night and say that she was hearing things, there were people walking around in the house.For almost 10 years things got worse and worse. She’d be cooking soup and add water and forget the rest of it. Or she’d open bottles and taste it, whatever it was, lotions and perfumes, she’d put them in her mouth. She’d mix all kinds of strange things together and say it enhanced the flavor. I tried to cook for her but she wouldn’t eat anything I ate. What she’d say was, “Married people are supposed to have differences.” It got to be a horror at times.
We first went to one counselor, then another one. The issue of separation came up several times. She’d say she wanted to leave, she wanted to just get out of here. I’d say, “Ok, I’m not going to try to keep you here, you can go.” But then she wouldn’t hear of it.
She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2003.
Essentially, we’ve had no kind of marriage in the way that people usually do. I expected that we could be together, cook for each other, be friends. It isn't necessary to sleep together all night, but we should be man and wife.
I’m considering another marriage as a possibility. I guess at this point I just feel like I’d like to have the option open. The year before last, I petitioned the court to be her legal guardian. In my last report, I made a statement asking for permission to dissolve the marriage if I could adopt her as a sister. I want to take care of her, but have a life for myself, too.
People need to understand it’s a hard time, this is not how I imagined things would be. Life is complicated.