Pat Robertson’s recent comments have definitely struck a nerve. For those who missed his comments, Robertson was responding on the 700 Club to a call-in question about a man whose wife has Alzheimer’s and who no longer recognizes her husband. According to the New York Times, Robertson said, "That is a terribly hard thing," Robertson said. "I hate Alzheimer's. It is one of the most awful things because here is a loved one—this is the woman or man that you have loved for 20, 30, 40 years. And suddenly that person is gone. But I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something he should divorce her and start all over again, but to make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her."
The responses have been overwhelmingly against Robertson. One opinion poll run by the Alzheimer’s Reading Room was showing 92 percent disagreeing with Robertson, while 3 percent agreed. Five percent responded that they didn’t know. (Please note that this survey didn’t share the total number of respondents, so it may be a small sample.)
Strolling around the Internet and you can find more descriptive reactions. My friend, Judy, wrote on Facebook, “Pat Robertson=MORON”; the responses to her posts were overwhelmingly in agreement. And Leah, who has vascular dementia and who serves as an expert for this HealthCentral site, disagreed with Robertson's take, noting, “Why didn't Mr. Robertson zone in on the man's frustration and loneliness...and validate that...rather than giving the man an easy out of the situation...one which breaks the promise he made in good faith to his suffering wife many years before?”
I tended to agree with them, until I think back to a very thought-provoking book, “Jan’s Story,” written by Barry Petersen, an Emmy-Award winning CBS News correspondent. I had promised when I wrote a sharepost about the book for this site to share one of Petersen’s life twists, but I hadn’t found the right time. However, Pat Robertson’s comments provide the perfect reason to share.
Throughout his book, Petersen candidly describes the couple’s life B.A. (before Alzheimer’s), during his wife’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and the couple’s life as her memory evaporated. In his book, Petersen includes an update that he sent to their friends and family in November 2008, when his wife’s disease had progressed considerably. He wrote, “And how do I live with a loneliness made worse because of what we once were? I am drifting without her. Drifting to what or where, I do not know…. There are moments when I feel such intense failure that I simply freeze in place and wonder about just getting up and going on. Why bother? If I couldn’t take of Jan, what really was my life all about? And worse, do I really want the rest of my life like this?”
Petersen also recounts how he had discussed the possibility of committing suicide during therapy sessions. The November update also made his family and friends worry that Petersen was truly considering taking his own life. “I was finally and hopefully lost in the darkest part of a valley, a deep abyss, a place that offers no good reason to go on,” Petersen wrote in the book. “In this valley, in this blinding blackness, all you can see is what is gone. And you only see that in your memories.” He even pondered ways to commit suicide, thinking that if he didn’t, he would go insane.
