Love, loss, and grace

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 7th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: When caregiving closes. The seniors organization AARP estimates one in five Americans serves as a caregiver for an adult or a child with special needs.

MAST: That includes nearly 6 million who serve as caregivers for a spouse. But what happens when that job ends? WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson tracks one woman’s journey through loss and life after.

UHLIR: He would sit and we'd feed him off of this [slaps hospital table], because he couldn't maneuver a chair under a table . . .

KIM HENDERSON: Anita Uhlir is showing me around her home in Southwest Michigan. She built it with her husband, Larry. They were married for 37 years.

UHLIR: This was a church directory picture. And I'm trying to remember when this was . . .

It was 2011. That’s when the Uhlirs’ world turned upside down.

UHLIR: It was a gentle little tremor, but he'd had it for over a year. We finally went to the doctor, and the doctor sent him to a neurologist.

The doctor gave them a hard diagnosis: Parkinson’s Disease. They were both 55.

UHLIR: I wept. My father died from complications of Parkinson's. So I knew what was coming. Larry did not.

Anita loved her husband through all the challenges brought on by his disease. They tried different doctors, different treatments. Lots of supplements. When Larry had difficulty breathing at night, he slept in a recliner. When he could no longer operate it, they bought a power lift chair to help.

Anita Uhlir sits in her husband's motorized recliner. Photo by Kim Henderson

These days, it’s Anita who sits in the chair. She’s wearing one of Larry’s old flannel shirts, her feet curled up under her.

UHLIR: We designed this room with kids in mind because we started building when we were trying to have children, and we had four miscarriages in three years. And God said no.

So, no children to help her care for Larry. When he started having panic attacks from being alone all day, Anita hired an agency of caregivers for help. She had to. She was still working full time.

ANITA: I would get home and change my clothes. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe, okay. Gotta get down before they leave, and then in the full swing. So yeah, for six years there was this no shutdown time.

She remembers reaching a hard point in 2018. She was at her computer doing more research, trying to find something else to help Larry, who was going down fast. But she suddenly sensed God leading her to stop.

UHLIR: No more. There is no more. You've done everything. You've found everything. There's no more. That was very, very hard to take, that I could do nothing more to help make his life, ease his pain.

SOUND: [SLIDING DOOR OPENING]

Anita stands at her sliding glass door. She looks out on her property and remembers.

UHLIR: He had a shop on the other side of that. Not this tree line, but if you look careful, beyond that thin spot, you see those taller trees.

Parkinson’s eventually left Larry barely able to walk. Anita and the aids couldn’t lift him without hurting themselves.

Still, making the decision to put her husband in a nursing home was hard.

ANITA: I would go from 11 to one o'clock to be with Larry during his lunch time to keep him company. And then I would come back and finish my eight hour shift, and then I’d go spend another couple hours with him, then I would come home.

When Larry died in 2020, Anita struggled to shift into a different role. No longer a wife. No longer a caregiver. And within three years, no longer employed. She retired. It wasn’t how she imagined things would be, even after his diagnosis.

ANITA: I knew that that meant I probably would not have him for very long after retirement. I was not expecting not to have him at all.

All their hopes of growing old together, gone.

ANITA: The first couple years, it was crying every day too. Um, I've come a long way by the grace of God. But you know, this house there are, there are “Larryisms” all over the place.

Larryisms. The way he built the plumbing lines that run upstairs. The vents with access ports for repairs. The windows still lacking trim.

Anita admits things are tight. She spent a third of her retirement savings on Larry’s in-home care. But she doesn’t regret that.

ANITA: I was just grateful I even had the access to the funds to get him what he needed to function.

Now more than ever, she’s able to be an active member of her church.

ANITA: We're a mostly widow congregation, and in fact, half of the guys are widowers.

Because they understand loss, they know how to encourage each other.

ANITA: We remind ourselves that it's not something you ever get over. It's something you continually, by the grace of God, get through.

And it’s something that should mature you, sanctify you, as a Christian.

ANITA: When Larry was so sick, it was pull into God, lean on him every minute of every day. And you know, granted, life is quieter, but I'm realizing I still need to stay there, which, that's where God wants us to be.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Paw Paw, Michigan.

This story comes from a much longer report from Kim on rethinking retirement and aging in America. Just one of the many featured articles in the next issue of WORLD Magazine. If you’re not currently a print or digital subscriber, visit wng.org/subscribe.

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