Miklos is now sleeping fourteen, fifteen hours a day. Sometimes even more. Is this just a sign of his system beginning to shut down or is it a form of depression that I could help lift him from? I have made an appointment with our primary care physician to check for possible other causes, like anemia. Until the last month or two, he never took a nap in bed, only in his recliner, fully dressed for the day. On most days now, he goes back to bed after breakfast, putting on pajamas if he had already dressed earlier. Then he stays in his pajamas until after noon. He may then take another nap after lunch

He recently joked that when you are young, you want to eat all the time and never sleep. But when you are old, you want to sleep all the time and never eat. Eating has also become a problem. Last year, Miklos lost ten pounds and he continues to be on a losing pattern.

Both Dr. Freitag and Dr. Hanft have told me that Miklos will benefit from a nutritious diet, good exercise, and social connections. I set good meals on the table. He nibbles at them, and then eats buttered toast we jam, dark chocolate, pita chips, M & Ms and pretzels, alternating between sweet and salty all evening while he watches T. V. I ask him to walk with me. Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.

He is eighty-six years old, and in reasonably good physical health. He is not going to change his habits of long-standing now. I could spend hours a day prodding, urging, nudging, and in general just nagging. That is not how I want to spend my last years with my husband. I want to find what joy we can. I want to share whatever adventures we still can. I want to have the best possible memories of our life together.

The one of those three that I can actually do something about is social connection. I make sure to have friends coming to our home for dinner once or twice a month. I arrange casual social connections, such as we have at the grocery store or going out to dinner. He also usually still goes to a discussion group that he started over twenty years ago, with several of the original members still participating. When he says he doesn’t feel like going, I do nag a little bit then. The group stimulates the best part of his brain. And the group members still benefit from his wisdom. He may have difficulty remembering what day it is, at least for now, he can share profound insights about the nature of God and the universe.