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Excerpt from Brave New Endings

This is one of the 30 stories in Brave New Endings: Eileen’s Story – Chapter 6

Eileen is a calm, engaging woman with a clear sense of direction. She drew on deep reserves of energy to navigate a true-love journey through mental illness.

Eileen and Steven

We met in 1986. Steven was the life of the party, and a good listener in quiet times. We read books to one another. He was easy to fall in love with. We were a good looking couple, and our relationship moved fast, with some twists and plot turns. He moved from Ottawa to Toronto, and I followed him there to begin our life together. We had trouble finding a suitable place to rent for our blended family of three boys. We bought a house and started a business to support our growing family. We birthed another boy together, adding to our fold, and juggled our busy family and expanding business.

A decade later, Steven suffered with depression. It was tough on everyone. He once told me that he tried to drink himself into being himself again. He sure missed being the life of the party. We all did.

Nonetheless, we built a successful business and seized the opportunity to sell it in 2001. We took off with our boys on an extended trip of a lifetime. However, Steven’s manic behaviour started to wear thin on the road. When we returned home, he wanted
to move to Montreal. I opted for stability and stayed put in Toronto for our boys’ sakes. We separated when he moved away.

All the same, Steven wanted to get back together but that meant moving our family. At our lowest point, he attacked me in our family home and threatened my life. Our youngest son was able to get him out of our home. It was traumatic. Later that same night, he tried to break into our home. We called the police; I had to press charges to establish a peace bond to protect myself and the children. Steven still wanted to reconcile, and I simply couldn’t.

His sister got more involved. At this point, there were 20 doctors engaged in his care, trying to figure out what was wrong with his mind. In the spring of 2006, he was finally diagnosed with a brain disorder: progressive supranuclear palsy (aka Steele-Richardson-Olszewski syndrome). At last, things started to make more sense. He deteriorated mentally and physically with this rare brain disease and needed to move into a care home that same year. One of his boys was still seeing him while the other three children were not involved in his life. The lines were drawn.

My brother ran into Steven downtown one afternoon and reassured me, “He can’t hurt you now.” I knew that I wanted to visit him before the end. When I woke up on Mother’s Day, I felt that the time was right. I called Steven to let him know that I wanted to visit. He was receptive and was quite happy to see me. That first visit was the most difficult one as Steven was unable to recognize his contribution to our breakup. That was extremely disappointing and frustrating to me.

He lived in three different nursing homes that year until we found the right level of respect and care for him. I encouraged each of our boys to reconnect. I visited him often, took a variety of lunches he liked, and read aloud to him. Reading had been a touchstone in our relationship.

We reminisced about the highlights of our lives together. On one visit, I realized that he was losing the capacity to speak. I asked our children to come say their goodbyes. It was an emotional week. Our shared birth child was still a teen, and we had been through a complicated decade.

At a certain point, I knew that it was right to bring him back to the family home. I arranged to have a hospital bed brought into the living room. We parented for the last time as I ensured each child had one-to-one time with their dad. It was a poignant time.

Steven always loved music. Our family played live music together. During our set breaks, the radio was always on. One time, as he was declining, a lively song came on the radio, and I flew to the living room and danced around his bed. His eyes shone with love and admiration.

I was devoted to his care and was lying in bed with him when he died. I was propping his head up when he took that last breath and felt the last pulse pass through his temple. I knew he was gone before the rest of the family who were at the bedside. I was so grateful that we were all with him. He was only 56 when he died. I went to my own bed while Steven’s sister and his youngest son stayed with his body to receive the doctor.

It was a complicated grief for me, yet I have no regrets. It was our last chance to have time together. With therapy, I’ve worked through the layers of my sadness. I know it was the right thing to do for me and our children. Our relationship was wild and wonderful. I was glad we were able to talk about the highlights together before he died. That was 16 years ago. Because our family went through his death together, each of the boys can talk with me about their own grief journey. I continue to have a strong relationship with Steven’s extended family, and they attended my wedding a few years ago.

Q and A Sample Interview

What led you to write this book?

I divorced after 36 years of marriage, after we grew up together. A decade later he went in for emergency surgery and I asked, “How can I help?” I surprised myself as it was a bumpy separation and divorce. It really got me thinking about what I would be willing to do for him. I started asking other people and was surprised to hear that many others felt the same way. Some of them had already helped an ex until their death. That’s when I decided to do a survey. Half the people who did the survey thought they would step up in some way. Some already had and, after 53 in-depth interviews, I knew I had a good book.

What were some of the most surprising insights you had while interviewing people for this book?

It surprised me how many people have been there for their ex. They don’t often talk about it openly, as their friends and family remember the tough times. Men seem more willing to support an ex with whom they did not have children and women seemed more willing to step up if they had children with their ex.

Why do people help their exes?

They each have different reasons. Something happens to help them realize how much the ex means to them. A great example is actor George Lazenby (who played James Bond). When his care home burned down in LA, that was a wake-up call for his ex, Pam Shriver. They were divorced but had been married for 7 years and shared 3 children. She oversees his care now.

Many of the women told me that they wanted to get involved to relieve their adult children of the time commitment. The women wanted to give their children more time with the grandchildren.
A few of the men who helped told me that they hoped for a reconciliation. In one case, they did get back together and had just over three years of her cancer journey together before she died.

Some people knew that this was goodbye, and they wanted to be there for their ‘first family’. I regularly heard that term. It gave them time to grieve with their children because after the death of an ex, there will be grief. Some of the complex grief from the divorce seems to evaporate by being involved with the care of an ex at the end of life.

Can you tell us about a few interviews that did not make it into the book but were interesting?

Sure. When one couple split up, they fought like cats and dogs over their two cats and one dog. Seriously – one of them kept all three of the animals. The other spouse got the dog every other weekend and one overnight per week. A large vet bill sorted it out – as the spouse who had custody didn’t have enough money. So – the primary one kept the two cats and the other one got the dog after paying that large bill. They were in a better place after that time. They met for coffee to formally forgive one another for the things that had happened to lead to their separation. That helped them move on and they have supported one another in different ways since that time.