Things About My Carol: Part 1: "She Can Talk Your Ear Off"

I mean this in a very good way

Just today, a Facebook Memory (you know those daily prompts from Facebook about things you posted years ago?) popped up on my feed. It was a video I posted 15 years ago shortly after our daughter's wedding. It's just a short 23 second clip of Jessica, Carol, and bridesmaids in the bridal room. I'm a pretty sentimental slob. Never really was that way until after our daughter was born. After the kids were born I found myself wiping my eyes to Budweiser Clydesdale commercials and sappy movies. I did get teary-eyed when I saw that 15-year old clip this morning though. I'll tell you why in a minute.

When Carol and I started dating back in the 1900s, I was amazed at how much she loved to talk to people. While she was always a bit on the shy side, once she was comfortable with you she would talk... and talk and talk. And she didn't care what your station was in life, she loved to talk to anyone and everyone... the wait staff, the lady that cleaned our hotel room, kitchen staff at church, the janitors at school. In fact, she would go out of her way to have a conversation with folks that in some cases get completely overlooked in our society. I always admired that about her. It's just the way she is wired. We were always the last ones to leave church when we had a nighttime service because of the conversations afterwards (I'll take some responsibility for this one too... I can be a bit chatty.) I could see the janitorial staff waiting in the wings for us to get out so they could finish and go home. I remember one night after leaving a restaurant I discovered that, somewhere along the way, Carol had disappeared. I was getting the kids into the minivan muttering "where is your mother?" Well, I look inside the restaurant and there she is having a full blown conversation with who knows who at one of the tables. It's obviously someone she knows and she is talking away. They can't eat their meal and I can't go home. I almost left her there. I could fill volumes about my Carol. Bottom line? She could talk your ear off.

Primary Progressive Aphasia. PPA. Probably not one of the most well known diseases. More people may be familiar with the singular term aphasia. Aphasia can affect people for several reasons. Sometimes it is a temporary condition and sometimes it is permanent and gets progressively worse. Aphasia is basically a disorder in the brain that impairs a person's ability to communicate. People that have suffered a stroke, brain injury, or have neurogenerative disease can experience aphasia.

Many of you already know this. In 2016, when Carol was first diagnosed we were told she had primary progressive aphasia which is one of the forms/ variants of frontotemporal dementia. I could get deeper into the weeds on it but, you can always Google it yourself if you are curious. More detail doesn't really add to what I wanted to say here.

It started with difficulty word-finding. There would be longer than normal pauses or more ums and ahs than normal when she would speak or answer a question. She couldn't come up with the word. As time went on it became more pronounced. Later it seemed she was having difficulty understanding some things spoken to her. Eventually the words were fewer and farther in between. Most recently, nearly all speaking has essentially ceased.

I remember coming home from work many an evening after Jessica and Michael were born and Carol would meet me at the door and want to tell me all about what had happened that day (she was a stay at home mom and I knew how hard that could be.) She hadn't spoken to another adult all day. I had just spent my entire day talking to employees, bosses, and customers non-stop. I can remember putting my hand up while we would be sitting on the couch and asking her, "please... can you not talk for just a few minutes until I can unwind a bit?" She always took it in the spirit in which I asked it. Sometimes she just spoke more than I could absorb. Later we would talk about our day and all the other things couples talk about.

I say all that to tell you this.

Among so many other things, I miss her voice. And when I unmuted that video this morning I heard the voice I haven't really heard in a year or two. And it reminded me of how much I miss it. And it hit me pretty hard. I'm having a hard time typing right now while she is sitting in the recliner right next to me.

(Be sure to unmute)

Yes, we have boxes of videos somewhere from all the video she took throughout our kids' entire childhoods. And I know we have her talking and laughing in several of them. I have only two voicemails on my phone from 2017 that I had the foresight to not delete. I listen to them occasionally. I will never  delete them.

Oh, how I wish she would talk my ear off again.

I'll share some more things about my Carol in future blogs. Most of what I write is really just for me. You are more than welcome to eavesdrop though. Never stop talking to the people you love.

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