Moving Sharon – Part II
By Jon Lucas
After the director finished her evaluation I followed her out to her car without Sharon, and asked her what she thought. She said Sharon would fit in fine at their care facility and she asked me when I would like to move her in. I said, “How about tomorrow?” She told me that was fine. We arranged for me to drop off Sharon the next morning at 10 am.
Wow, this was really happening! I spent the remainder of the day sneaking around behind Sharon’s back, packing up the suggested supplies and clothing for her without her seeing me doing it. I also began figuring out my plan for the next morning. One of the things I was dreading was removing her diamond engagement ring and her wedding band. These needed to come off before moving her into Cedar Creek for obvious reasons. Not only was it going to be strangely symbolic, but I knew from past experiences that they didn’t come off easily.
On Wednesday morning I started the day by getting Sharon showered and into clean clothes. She was a total bitch to me during the process which reinforced to me that I was doing the right thing. I prepared her breakfast and got her to eat it. At that point I had some time to kill before taking her to Cedar Creek. I invited her to join me on the couch and I played a concert DVD of her favorite artist, Jason Mraz, on the television. We watched the entire DVD for about an hour. One of his most popular songs is called Lucky and it had been a favorite of hers. The song is about being in love with your best friend. The lyrics include the refrain:
I’m lucky I’m in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again.
Sharon started crying during this song as we sat together on the couch holding hands. I wept with her. I don’t know if she sensed something was happening or if the song lyrics just made her cry. What irony in that final line!
After the DVD ended, about 20 minutes were left before I would load her into the car. So I walked her around the house, showing her the collections of her once favorite things that she had in display cases. I got a few of them out and let her hold them. We talked about how cute or how pretty they were. Then, as time to leave was drawing near, I took her upstairs to coach her through one final bathroom session. As I was helping her wash her hands I soaped up her ring finger real good and told her I was going to remove her rings so I could get them cleaned up for her. But they were stuck on that finger behind her first knuckle real well!
“Ouch! You are hurting me!” she said.
“I’m sorry. I just need to give them a quick pull to get them off,” I hoped out loud.
“No! It hurts! Stop it!” she screamed. Now she was starting to cry. I was determined to get them off. I gave them another good tug while twisting them and they cleared the knuckle. She was very upset. My loving morning with her ended with me stripping off her wedding rings, hurting her and making her cry. The symbolism struck me again and I felt awful. But the deed was done. Minutes later she had forgotten the entire incident and was a happy girl again. Now it was time.