Mike is Adapting to Assisted Living

Getting to this point is never easy, but Mike is finally realizing that Assisted Living means less daily stress.  There still is the self -generating stress but no more bills to pay, or breakneck schedules to keep or a dozen other responsibilities.  He seems to be grateful.  I am surprised this is evolving so quickly, but it is gratitude I am noticing in him.  Last Saturday, Planning for the NY Lifetime achievement award ceremony, I took a suit to him for a fitting.  I thought one of his suits would still fit though it may need some alteration.  He was looking so frail.  I was surprised when he tried on the suit pants that the waistband would not meet by 3-4 inches.  Eating a balanced three meals a day is putting a bit of weight on him.  I told him not to worry.  I will take him pants shopping right before the trip so he has attractive, comfortable clothes to wear.  We will do that a month from now.  I took him to lunch at the Korean Restaurant on Exchange Street.  There he could order whatever five-alarm spicy meal he wished.  Mike had a number of flash backs to his Korean War days as he sampled the various Kim Chis appetizers, fried oysters and and his main dish of Gogi Gui. I then took him to a one time showing of the 1999 movie Topsy-Turvy the story of the partnership of Gilbert and Sullivan and the creation of 'The Mikado'.  I know Mike loves opera, even light opera but I did not realize he knew all the words to the Mikado-until he started singing right there in the Nickelodeon Theater.  Too say he had a Grand time would be an understatement.  I took him shopping for hearing aid batteries and then back to his Assisted Living Community.  I think he may have had someone waiting for him because he was concerned he be returned in time for dinner and the evening movie,  It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Cobert.  I got the impression he is making friends and is at peace with his living arrangement.  This is very gratifying for both Harry and me.  Harry is finishing with the emptying of Mike's old Commercial Street apartment.  Not much worth saving remained there. The companions Mike allowed in his life the last seven years cleaned out anything of value.  Though it upsets the kids, and sickens me (I had given him some wonderful Cross cufflinks and watches over the years),  I guess the thing to remember is Mike is oblivious to those material things.  Early on in his career, the upper-case Women-in-His-Life were part of the typography industry, did not care much for convention, intelligent, talked a lot about Goddess worship but earned their own keep, and had minds of their own.  I think I was the first love interest (other than his first wife) who did not come from the Typography Industry. I ran my own business, treasured family and did not put much stock in the the goddess worship stuff.  I did not notice the signs of his Alzheimer's until late into our marriage, but it certainly had been there for a while.  The womanizing reved up again as Pages Software disintegrated.  It was obvious to everyone including Mike his career had peaked in the Linotype and Bitstream days.  These extra women during and after our marriage to now were not of the 'caliber' of the ones who infected his first marriage. Now, all of them but especially the latest -those financially dependent, "LaLa Land" spirituality, nudist, tantric energy, tarot reading, and even outright predatory women have been either completely forgotten by Mike or have morphed into one non-specific, lower-case 'airy-fairy' being.  The only person remembering them is me.  Why the hell is it that the wife gets the memories of these good-for-nothing but VD creatures?
What a  strange pattern the fabric of life weaves.