Each day in America and around the world, a husband or wife loses his or her spouse to an accident, to disease, to violence, and dozens of other ways death visits each of us at some point in our lives. A child may lose a parent.  A parent may lose a child. A best friend may lose his or her best friend.

If this event of losing a loved one has visited your life, my heart goes out to you.  We are kindred souls in the loss of our loved ones.

It's been six months since the love of my life, Sandi, died of Alzheimer's Disease after a seven year battle to defeat that cruelest scourge upon this planet.  It afflicts around:  

"An estimated 57 million people live with dementia globally, and Alzheimer's disease causes 60% to 70% of those cases, meaning 32 to 40 million people suffer Alzheimer's worldwide."

For the record, Alzheimer's doesn't care if you are famous as in Bruce Willis, Rita Hayworth, or Joe Biden—it can cut you down as it decays your mind, destroys your body, degrades your face, and utterly brings you to your knees.  From diagnosis to death, it averages eight years to kill you.

At first, your memory slips. You forget your spouse's name. You forget your best friend's name.  You forget your own name.  You forget how to wash yourself. You forget how to drive your car.  You don't know where you live.  You walk out the door and down the street without any idea of where you're going.  Soon, you cannot feed yourself.  You cannot bath yourself.  You need Depends Diapers to contain your bowel movements. You need 24/7 care to make sure you are comfortable and loved.

While you may read books about a few people recovering from Alzheimer's if they caught it soon enough, and we did catch Sandi's prognosis very early—Alzheimer's, like ALS and Parkinson's disease—are relentless, insidious, and cruel.

After about six years, Sandi was no longer Sandi. Her personality vanished.  Her life-energy degraded.  Her mind would not operate. Her body slumped.

I read every book published on therapies to save her.  I bought a Magnetic Mat to balance her magnetic field with the Earth's. I bought her "Earthing/Grounding" sheets to put her in direct touch with the Earth's electrical waves. I took her to a Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber five days a week.  I gave her a 30-minute full body massage every morning. She sat in a dry sauna to sweat out toxins from her body.  She took every nutrient to clear her mind, daily.  She walked a track for 50 minutes daily.  Her feet were soaked in an Ion-Cleansing bath for 45 minutes daily. She enjoyed organic meals daily. She received acupuncture weekly.   She received chiropractic adjustments weekly. I spent a small fortune having her injected with Exosome Stem Cells that were supposed to revive her brain. They did not. We studied learning boards daily with vocabulary, simple math, and retention.  She did her best until her mind would not cooperate.  I prayed to God to help her three times a day for seven years.  I would hold her head in my hands to direct God's energy into reviving her brain.

In the last two years, she knew my face, but not my name. She could not speak a full sentence. She would utter phrases at different moments of the day.

On the morning of the day she died, as I pulled her out of bed, she sat up holding my hands, and said, "I like you." Those were her last words on this Earth.  I smiled, held her close, and said, "I love you with all my heart, Sandi."

On February 18, 2026, as I was feeding her dinner that night, her head pitched back.  I picked up her body…she died in my arms.  I placed her on the carpet, gave her CPR and mouth-to-mouth.  I called 911.  They arrived within five minutes. They tried everything to revive her.  

Later, EMT's put her on a gurney. They said I could hold her one more time.  All that showed was her face as she was shrouded in white sheets. I kissed her lips and her forehead.  I said, "I couldn't help falling in love with you, Sandi."  That was the last time I saw my wife.  Gone forever from this Earth.  As I said before, "Heaven just got a new angel."

So, for the next four months, I hibernated in my house…to protect me from the world. I got lots of phone calls from friends, but now, six months later, the phone calls have dropped off because friends have their own lives to live.

At a "Grief Group" at my church, the minister said, "You can't keep mourning your loss, because if you do, you will live a life of mourning as your way of living.  You have to get back into life by doing what you did before Sandi's death."

So, in the past four weeks, I have returned to my recreation center swimming pool to swim a half-mile daily, and lift weights for an hour.  All my friends know that Sandi died, and they wished me well. Some even told me about their own losses.

Additionally, I've returned to the Rocky Mountain Swing Club where Sandi and I danced our brains out for the past 30 years. West Coast Swing, Salsa, C & W, Night Club Two Step, Tango, and more.  I am taking lessons to recover my dance patterns.  It gives me tremendous joy to be back on the dance floor.

Therapists told me that I have to plan big events. So, last week, I bicycled 14 miles, at six percent grade, to the top of Mt. Blue Sky near my house. It took 4.5 hours of constant pushing the pedals.  It is the highest road in North America at 14,266 feet.  At the top, you can see for 100 miles across the Rocky Mountains.

What does that mean for you when you lose a loved one?  How are you going to deal with your loss?  How do you bring meaning back into your life?  How do you stop from killing yourself?  How do you reengage with meaning, purpose and appreciation of your life?

Several friends gave me books on "Recovery from Loss of a Loved One."  I've been so emotionally paralyzed that I haven't read a single page in those books.  I've got to figure out how to dig myself out of my "hole" by my own actions.  My grief group partner, Mary, just lost her husband in May. She was all tears sitting next to me. Then, I started crying to match her crying. We both knew how we both felt at losing our spouses.  I was SO upset about her loss that I couldn't attend the 10:00 a.m. church service. I drove away from church, crying my eyes out. I'm crying my eyes out writing this commentary. 

As I drove home, I saw a man sitting under the bridge on 6th Avenue. He was homeless, in rags, and with nothing to do.  Down the street further near Colfax Ave., another homeless man sat in a wheelchair in the shade of an abandoned building—without any chance for a decent life. I have to admit that my "empathy" levels have gone sky high as to the suffering in the world.  I "feel" horrendous affinity with all the moms, dads, sisters and brothers, and friends who have lost their loved ones in Ukraine, Iran and Gaza.  God, there is so much pain out there.

I wish humanity would avoid wars, and work to solve all the diseases on this planet instead of spending money on killing one another. Can you imagine spending $6 trillion (amount spent on the 20-year Afghanistan/Iraq wars) on solving Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's, Diabetes, Cancers, and many other diseases? 

Whatever you do when you lose your loved one, take care of yourself.  Talk with friends. Go ride your bike or take a hike. Volunteer at a soup kitchen. Or, go pick up trash along the highway. Or, learn to play Pickleball. Or, take a class. Or, dance Zumba or West Coast Swing. Yes, you must and will mourn, and you will probably never get over your loss, but with your time left on this planet, choose to move toward your life, while looking back on the times you shared with your loved one.

I will always remember Sandi's last words to me, "I like you." 

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