Definition of bittersweet

adjective

• (of food, drink, or flavor) sweet with a bitter aftertaste.
• arousing pleasure tinged with sadness or pain:the room, with all its bittersweet memories
   
   
  I've had a couple of respite trips - one to Philadelphia where I went to be in the company of some of my wonderful women friends. These are the friends who make the effort to connect with me and remind me that I still have a life.
   
  Then I had another trip where I flew down to Nashville, where my brother lives, and we drove down to Alabama to spend a couple of days with our mom. We shared memories of our childhood...and I treasured the simple reminder that all the details of my life are not completely gone.
   
  The thing about respite is that it is so wonderful and also so very painful. I spend time laughing, being with people I love, strengthening connections, and escaping from the pain of caregiving. I come home refreshed but also aching because freedom comes so rarely now, and is all the sweeter because I know what it is like to feel the restraint of Donna's Alzheimer's. It has shrunk both of our worlds. I used to feel like my life now exists on an island, but respite makes me feel like the world is still out there, and then I must return to this postage stamp of life where it is only work and caregiving that occurs.
   
  I also shared bittersweet memories with my friend, Sharon who was in Massachusetts for a few days. I was able to pick her up and take her on a trip down memory lane!
   
  
    We went to eat at Weintraub's Deli in Worcester, where she had not been in at least 40 years. It made her incredibly happy, and painfully sad because Weintraub's is a repository of memories for her. Family that she loved are no longer alive except in her memory. The taste of a pickle or the bite of corned beef transported her back to the sweetness of her childhood.
  
  Driving around Elm Park to see her grandfather's old house, now altered by new owners takes her back in time, yet she must dig deeper into her memory to recollect the house when it was covered in clapboards and filled with dark wood, stained glass, antiques and the love of her family. Now it is a geographical placeholder, around the corner from other homes where relatives live - but all of them now gone.
  
  
  The poignancy of sharing this short evening with Sharon reminded me that we often grow up and find these memories rattling around in our heads and we wish so desperately that we could ask questions of the people we remember. We grow into our lives too late to have the chance to get the answers to questions we would like to know.
  
  
  For me, there is such heartache in memories because Donna is losing all connections to her own life as well as mine and our collective life. Sharon drives by her grandfather's old home and is instantly thrust into memories that she can share with her sisters and her husband. I drive by a place where Donna and I lived, and it is no different for her than any other house on that street. It means nothing. I remember the porch, the view of the pond, the muskrat and ducks, that it was where we lived when our old dog died, and our new dog came to live with us. I remember the ugliness of a pink bathtub and the noises of the pipes, and that the extension was built on cement-filled beer kegs. Donna remembers none of these things. She doesn't remember her own memories either. There is no context for her life with or without me, with or without her memories...she only exists in the here and now. 
  
  
  While ultimately we all only have the here and the now - we live in our present replete with all the history we carry. We bring our memories and experiences with us. We carry those we love and who have loved us. We hold the stories that old relatives told us and so they live on. We tell our own stories thereby connecting our past and present and hope that the people who love us will someday tell a story that begins with, "Remember when...."
  
  Donna doesn't have that. Doesn't say that. Doesn't do that. To say it is a devastating loss is a bit like saying have a limb ripped from your body hurts a wee bit. You think you can imagine it. But you can't. And that is why it is good that there is some sweetness to temper the bitter.