January 2018 Bar Bulletin
By Barbara A. West
My mother died in November 2016 after a long struggle with the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. As she lay dying, my father was hospitalized with a series of bacterial infections. On the heels of her death, he needed hip-replacement surgery. Afterwards he endured major post-operative complications and had to be housed in his residential community’s rehabilitation center for almost five months.
During this time, he gradually recovered from my mom’s passing. Like many couples from their generation, my parents had been high school sweethearts; they went on their first date in June 1948, and missed celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary by less...