staring-at-the-sun-yalom

38 staring at the sun
familiar with the contemporary brief therapy model. I
saw her for over thirty years!
Not thirty consecutive years (although I want to go
on record as saying that some people do require that
amount of ongoing support). Alice—who, with her
husband, Albert, owned and operated a musical instrument
store—first called me when she was fifty because
of escalating conflicts with her son as well as with several
friends and customers. We met in individual therapy
for two years and then in a therapy group for three
years. Although she improved a great deal, several
times in the next twenty-five years she returned to therapy
to deal with significant life crises. My final visit
with her took place at her bedside shortly before her
death at the age of eighty-four. Alice taught me a great
deal, especially about stressful stages during the second
half of life.
The following episode occurred during the last
course of therapy, which began when she was seventyfive
and lasted for four years. Alice called for help when
her husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
She needed support: there are few ordeals more nightmarish
than witnessing the gradual but relentless crumbling
of the mind of a life partner.
Alice suffered as her husband passed through all
the inexorable stages: first, the radical short-term memory
loss, with missing keys and wallets; then his forgetting
where his automobile was parked and her cruising
the city in search of the lost vehicle; then his wandering