The Sun Singer

The most common question I am asked these days (besides if I have a pencil a student “can” use) is, “How did you know your husband has Alzheimer’s?” Sometimes before I respond, the well-meaning person may say, “Did he forget where he left his keys or what he was going into a room to do, because I do that all the time?” Well sure, he has done those things, but haven’t most of us?  No, it was much more dramatic than that.

Jim’s mother had Alzheimer’s and her mother probably had it, since she was placed into a care facility at a young age.  Like anyone in a family with this history, every time he had a memory lapse, the fear rushed to Jim’s mind that it could be the beginning of Alzheimer’s.  I truly didn’t see any signs, so when he would ask, I tried to relieve his fears by justifying it as normal.

The day our world changed is forever burned into my memory.  We were spending the weekend at Allerton Park and Retreat Center (https://allerton.illinois.edu/), a magnificent site in Monticello, Illinois, gifted in 1946 to the University of Illinois (Jim’s employer at the time).  We were staying in a restored farmhouse on the grounds, and he was excited to give me a two-day tour of the beautiful mansion, gardens, trails, and sculptures.

It was the second day and we were hiking the wooded trails that Robert Allerton had used as his natural canvas.  He had placed incredible sculptures imported from all around the world, in surprising places, often in the middle of the dense woods.  I was delighted with every unique piece of art we would find along the trail, as Jim knew I would be. He told me stories of the eccentric artist and collector who loved his father’s vast agricultural and wooded lands and turned them into artistic landscapes.  At the end of our day, we decided to drive to the remaining sculpture in the middle of a paved cul-de-sac in a vast field. It was an amazing sculpture called The Sun Singer, a depiction of the Greek sun-god Apollo.  He looked like a helmeted warrior with arms raised to the heavens, greeting the burning globe in the eastern sky.  It was a perfect ending to our weekend as we headed out of the cul-de-sac, until two men in a car traveling toward The Sun Singer pulled up beside us and rolled down their windows.

“Hey, do you know where that new bridge out here is?”

Jim climbed out of our car and walked up to theirs.  He had told me about a new bridge just yesterday, but we hadn’t crossed it.  “Ummm . . . yeah . . . I think it is on down this road a little ways,” pointing in the direction we had just come.

When he came back to our car, I asked why he told them the bridge was behind us.  He said he thought it was. I looked at him seriously and quietly said, “Only The Sun Singer is back there.  We just came from it.” He was crestfallen. Shock registered on his face, and we sat and cried, there on that road in our car that day.  The Earth stopped spinning on its axis and tilted immediately in a new direction. One away from the sun. We knew what that meant.

It eventually took depression, a diagnosis, education, and much prayer and introspection to realize together, we would face the demon.  It wouldn’t be easy. With acceptance, Jim once again became the man I knew: carefree, joyful, and trusting God to control his life.  Like with The Sun Singer, every sunrise is something for him to behold. He spends his days hiking with friends, long walks with the dog, reading, watching old movies, visiting with our kids, playing with his grandson, and being active in the church he loves.  We picked up his new bike this week. Ask him how he’s doing, and he will likely tell you, “Great. Life is good,” and mean it.

Photo credit: Samuel T. Logan.  Please visit Samuel’s beautiful photography at  www.samloganphotography.com