For David
The notion that men in this country suck at friendship is so widespread that it has become a truism, a punchline. New York Times, May 25, 2025
I moved to Tucson, where I had family, from Massachusetts a year ago. Two months before I moved, my friend David was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease.
David and I had been friends for about ten years, having met at a cocktail party hosted by the local Lifelong Learning Program we both belonged to, and our first conversation was full of laughter and cheer. I had known David’s wife, Miriam, as we both served on the Program Committee, and it was Miriam who introduced us.
David and I met regularly for lunch after that and our friendship grew steadily. We learned that we both loved crime fiction, and I turned him on to Michael Connelly. When I told him I loved to cook with garlic, he gave me a half dozen huge, wonderfully aromatic heads from his garden. I once mentioned that I was going to Boston, about a two-hour drive, for a book signing. He offered to go with me. Just to keep me company on the long drive there and back, he said.
One day at lunch he told me, in a nonchalant manner, that he was a recovering alcoholic, now sober about 30 years. That he would trust me with such an intimate detail of his life suggested that our friendship was deeper and more personal than simply meeting for lunch and doing favors for each other.
It was during the last five or six years in Massachusetts that for me, our friendship was re-defined again. My wife, Beth, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but her disease was, at first, mild and involved little more than repeating questions, forgetting conversations, and occasionally doing odd things like feeding our dog peanut butter and jelly sandwiches instead of dog food. If someone who had not known Beth met her for the first time, her illness would not have been apparent. For several years, I told only family.
This is not to say that I was not frightened of the future, of what it meant for Beth, of what it meant for us, for our retirement, for our finances, for my mental and physical health. But mostly I feared losing Beth, a person I’d loved for over forty years, who was now slowly disappearing into the fog of a mental and emotional void. Alzheimer’s is relentlessly cruel and impossibly difficult to predict.
For support, I knew that I just needed to talk, to be heard. But I discovered that few people could really listen. I found people who were quite uncomfortable talking with a friend in crisis, showing their discomfort by avoiding eye contact, frequently changing the topic, or avoiding me all together.
There were also people who were intent on fixing me, on telling me what I needed to do. Advice often came through platitudes; “…worrying is like a rocking chair — you move a lot, but it doesn’t get you anywhere,” or directives usually starting with the words “you should….” The platitudes were useless and the “you shoulds” often insulted my intelligence and were infuriating.
And then there was the rare person who was not uncomfortable with such issues, and who didn’t try to fix me. That person reflected and validated feelings, showed that above all, he cared about Beth and about me. That person understood, consciously or not, the meaning of empathy. He listened without judgement, without the need to fix, and without a platitude at the ready.
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For me, that person was David.
As Beth declined, I looked forward to my lunches with David even more. He was a comfort. I did not monopolize the conversations with talk about Beth, Alzheimer’s, loss of intimacy, loneliness, and fear. I didn’t have to. After just a little while of such talk, I felt lighter, as if I had just taken off a heavy backpack filled with all manner of emotional junk I wanted nothing to do with. David occasionally told me stories of his dealing with his father, also an Alzheimer’s victim, twenty years earlier. But mostly, he just listened with empathy, adding occasional words of comfort. After I unloaded my woes, we could then talk and laugh together as friends do.
My wife died in a nursing home, unable to speak or to recognize me, early in 2022. David was there for me then, too, acknowledging the simultaneous sense of loss and relief I was experiencing.
It was the early summer of 2023 as I was starting to prepare for my move to Tucson when I got a phone call from a mutual friend, who told me of David’s diagnosis. It was crushing. I had known that I would be there for Beth until the end. For David, the man who had been of such vital help when I needed it, and for Miriam, I would be across the country.
David and I got together a few times before I left, and usually, Miriam joined us. The early signs were now more obvious to me. They were the same signs I saw in Beth during the early years of her disease. Miriam answered questions that David couldn’t. She ordered lunch for him because he couldn’t understand the menu. And despite his still cheery disposition, David appeared limited in his ability to converse coherently.
Miriam told me privately that David’s doctor said that his disease was progressing more rapidly than usual. I told her that I would be available, if only by phone, if she ever needed to talk, but I suspected that such a phone call would be unlikely. Since I’ve been here, I’ve called them several times. Miriam puts us on speaker phone and while David is always on the line, he almost never speaks.
The helplessness and profound sadness I feel after each of these conversations is palpable, not only because I know how David’s disease will progress, but also because it feels like a replay of the feelings I knew so well, feelings that I had fooled myself into thinking had evaporated.
I think about David often, but it has not interfered with finding a new life here. I have nice neighbors, I joined the Lifelong Learning Program here in Tucson, as well as the local Community Center, and I’ve met a woman for whom I care deeply.
When I think about David, I think about loss, empathy, and the sad days that lie ahead for him and Miriam.
But often, I also smile at the memories of our time in Massachusetts, about his humor, his generosity of spirit, his empathic nature, and of course, I think about friendship.
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