About

Welcome to MONO-BLOG, aka, Gloria, A Monologue. Please understand that every word in MONO-BLOG is my wife’s. My sole contribution is that of lover, husband, caregiver and partner for 30 years. My qualifications:  Feature writer, journalist for the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail in Canada, CBC Radio interviewer and Programmer. I bring what limited skills I have to attend, to listen, to listen, to listen to and serve as best I can one of Santa Cruz’ most gifted and deservedly best-known artists, Gloria K. Alford wife, my wife.

Following a car crash, Diagnosed in October, 2008 as having dementia, Alzheimer’s, Gloria went through a period of extreme anger, rage and over-the-top Everything.

Frightened, unsure of what to do, learning that caregivers often die 10 years earlier than they might otherwise, I confess, I lost it.

Anyway, less than helpful, I fell into a depression, considered suicide…  planned to drown myself.  Diagnosed as clinically depressed, I took a variety of prescribed meds, anti-anxiety pills, antidepressants, and began each morning to write and write and write, and of course to listen as closely and attentively as I could… what else could I do? I love-loved-love her… one way and another, I turned around, I began listening to my wife as I’d never before listened to anyone. I thank God that I’ve been privileged to have spent the last decade or so in her company.

So it is I have this 125-page manuscript, “Love Has Made Grief Absurd–Gloria, A Monologue.”

I can’t stop. The thing has taken on a life of its own. It keeps me going and, oddly, I’m happier than I’ve ever been in my life. Heart trouble, Parkinson’s disease, asthma, I don’t care. All I want to do is write and yet, what can I say? 99.9% of the words I set down on the page are hers, not mine. 

The story continues and I plan to proceed as I have been, only this time I’ll be sharing the project, day by day, in the form of a blog, hence the title, MONO-BLOG – Alzheimers.com

What comes next? Read on… like you dear reader, I have no idea.