Vujade, I am so sorry for your pain. Reading your story brought back so many sad memories.
It is unbelievably tragic to watch someone you care about, transform before your very eyes ... realizing there is nothing more you can do to stop its progression. Wanting desperately to reclaim someone that used to be so different, the person you remember from years ago.
We get to a point where we finally realize, this person has fallen into a death spiral they are incapable of escaping from. They become barely recognizable both physically and mentally. The last lingering hope that they may one day find the resolve to return to the healthy person we remember, the person we knew before addiction began to steal them away ... begins to dissolve when we realize we are losing them and there is no turning back. Realizing the damage has become too extensive and they are coming to the end of their journey.
I began to grieve my husband’s loss while he was still alive as I watched him die a little bit each day while he rapidly fell into a debilitating decline. I barely recognized him. The periods when he would return to his old self again, became fewer and fewer. He became angry, confused and disoriented - someone I no longer knew. After working 22 years without missing a single day of work - he quickly become so sickly, frail and confused ... severely disabled both physically and mentally in just a few short years. Where once he had been someone with amazing endurance, strength with a sharp mind and incredible memory ... he had become someone that could barely walk, unable to do simple math or remember the day before.
In time a yellow pallor to his skin appeared and his belly became bloated ... and then one day it all hit me, he wasn’t going to recover. Any lingering hope of recovery was now completely gone. That day it hit me like a freight train - I realized he was dying. There would be no more chances for a happy ending.
Amazingly, that day my anger subsided as I realized I would soon be losing this man I had spent my entire adult life with, the father to my children ... and as I sat alone in my home, I sobbed uncontrollably with grief and forgiveness, finally realizing the good person underneath this horrifying addiction that had so dramatically transformed him ... would soon be gone forever. Five days later he died ... leaving behind two sons and tragic legacy of misguided addictive destruction, pain and loss.
May you find the strength, peace and hope to navigate whatever journey lies ahead. May your story still has a chance for a happy ending.