I travelled the world with my partner of 23 years before Alzheimer's chipped away at his brilliant mind. Then on our wedding day, he asked me a heartbreaking question | Retrui News | Retrui
I travelled the world with my partner of 23 years before Alzheimer's chipped away at his brilliant mind. Then on our wedding day, he asked me a heartbreaking question
SOURCE:Daily Mail
Jane Chapman, 82, from Gravesend in Kent, married Chris Howes, also 82, in March 2020, just before lockdown.
Dressed in a blue coat and scarf on a chilly day in March 2020, Jane Chapman drove her partner of 18 years, Chris Howes, to the registry office as they prepared to get married - and asked him if he remembered where they were off to.
‘Remind me?’ he replied.
It was a gently spoken yet arresting reminder of the reason the couple, who first met in 1992, were tying the knot.
Chris, now 82 a pianist and jazz enthusiast who had toured the world giving lectures on music during his fruitful career, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a year earlier.
As the Daily Mail launches its Defeating Dementia campaign with Alzheimer's Society, Jane has opened up about how the illness chipped away at the brilliant mind of her partner.
Both previously married and each with grown up children of their own (Jane with three daughters and Chris with two sons) tying the knot had never been in their plans. But as Chris’s symptoms continued to progress, they decided it was best to legally wed.
It hadn’t always been this way. Speaking from her home near Gravesend, Kent, 82-year-old former journalist and writer Jane recalls being charmed by Chris's brilliant mind in their early days of dating, as they bonded over a shared love of music - his true passion.
Their first meeting came when Jane was commissioned by a local newspaper to review a new jazz club - and Chris was its owner.
Jane Chapman and her husband Chris Howes, both 82, are living with the devastation of dementia after Chris was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2020
'He's very intelligent,' Jane says, describing her husband's extensive knowledge of the musical world. 'He could remember so much; information you'd think is irrelevant, he would retain it somehow.'
Despite this, she jokes his memory for the smaller things, like where he'd left his keys, was always poor.
For the next few decades, Chris's career took him on cruise ships where he gave talks on the work of composers including Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and jazz musicians. Jane joined him as they explored destinations like Norway, Libya, Madeira and Casablanca.
'I got to see places we'd never have seen in a million years,' she says.
Everyone experiences dementia differently. Use this checklist to help you make a note of your symptoms before you talk to your GP.
Despite seeing the world as a pair, the couple continued to live separately for their first 23 years together.
'It's a very successful way to keep a relationship going!'
However, when Jane became a grandmother in 2015, she wanted to move out of London and closer to her daughter - so the pair decided they would live out their golden years together in a home in Kent.
Now in their early 70s, the couple were entering unchartered territory in their relationship - cohabiting for the first time.
While most couples moving in together tend to bicker as they adjust to each other's living habits, Jane's first few months living with Chris raised flags in a different way, as she began to notice changes in her long-term partner's behaviour.
Chris now lives in a care home after his needs became too acute for Jane to cope with. However she visits him every day
Chris was a passionate musician and ran jazz nights at a bar in south east London when he first met Jane
'It's only when you're living with somebody that you realise there are difficulties,' she says.
The little things that slipped Chris's mind had largely gone unnoticed by Jane in recent months - but now she was living with her partner, they began to ring around her head.
Always a confident driver during the 23 years they'd spent together, Chris suddenly seemed unable to remember basic directions.
'He'd come home late and I'd think he'd had an accident. He'd tell me 'I just couldn't find my way home'.'
Frightened for her partner's safety, Jane insisted he stopped driving.
The previously tech-savvy Chris was also finding it difficult to use his phone - something he'd never struggled with in the past.
Convinced something wasn't right, Jane persuaded her husband to go for tests, which eventually revealed he had a mild cognitive impairment. But his true diagnosis was much more serious.
As the years passed Jane watched her husband's memory continue to falter and persuaded him to go back to the clinic, where he eventually had a brain scan.
Chris's career and hobbies revolved around music. Pictured during a Children in Need music fundraiser, which he took part in every year
The call came in the afternoon in early 2019. Jane was alone and doing her weekly food shop when she learnt of Chris's devastating diagnosis.
'It's not where you want to be when you're told your partner has Alzheimer's.'
She didn't receive the shattering news from Chris himself - rather, the call came from a doctor. To this day, Chris has never mentioned his own diagnosis.
'I was the one who told all our friends,' Jane explains. 'People used to ask if Chris would be better to tell us himself, but he wouldn't ever tell anyone.'
Despite having her entire world turned on its head and feeling entirely alone with no support to process Chris's diagnosis, Jane's approach to Alzheimer's remained practical.
While her pragmatism helped her to cope with the devastation dementia had brought to her life, she also had little choice in the matter.
'When you're told it's Alzheimer's, that's the end of it,' she says. 'Everything after that, you do yourself.'
It was Jane who sought out nearby dementia clubs and social groups where Chris could meet other people and take part in activities - but she had no official support in caring for her partner.
Looking back, she believes things could have been improved significantly had Chris been officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's much earlier into his illness.
She says: 'We'd have been more prepared for things. I don't think you ever know how difficult it is until it happens.'
Jane and Chris had both been married before and decided not to live together until 23 years into their relationship
Chris, now 82, began exhibiting out-of-character behaviour when he and Jane finally moved in together
She arranged for herself to hold power of attorney over Chris's affairs; and decided it was time to walk down the aisle on March 20, 2020 - days before the nation was plunged into lockdown as Covid raged through the population.
Although a lockdown hadn't been officially imposed, the registry office had already set limits on the number of people allowed into the building at any one time - so it was Chris, Jane and two friends who acted as witnesses.
'Then the four of us went to our respective homes and that was that,' she says.
The early days of married life were equally unorthodox as the couple hunkered down in their home and observed lockdown with the rest of the nation, taking daily walks in nature as part of their allotted time allowed outside.
Although extraordinary and unusual, it was time together that Jane cherished as she faced a future that was in equal part uncertain and inevitable - Chris wasn't going to get better.
And as the disease continued to progress, Jane herself underwent a transformation - from partner to carer - as Chris's needs became more acute and ever-changing.
On his worst days, Chris would wander out and disappear, leaving his wife frightened for his safety and with no clue as to his whereabouts.
'It was scary,' she says. 'I'd suddenly realise he was no longer in the house.
'One morning I came downstairs at about 7.30. All the doors were locked but he wasn't in.
'I realised he had gone out the window and, after searching, I eventually found him in the Co-op carrying a briefcase full of socks.'
The day before Jane's 80th birthday, Chris had a fall and was taken to hospital with a broken femur. In need of an operation, he was given anaesthetic, but unfortunately it brought on delirium.
Delirium is a state of heightened and sudden confusion that affects a person's consciousness and perception of reality. It is most common in the elderly and can affect people who are already living with dementia in making their symptoms feel worse.
Although the condition itself is temporary, it marked a shift in Chris's condition.
'You don't really come back from that. It's worse than the effects of Alzheimer's.'
As he continued his recovery at home after being discharged, Jane hired a carer to help look after him.
'I realised I couldn't cope on my own. He's a tall man and I'm only short,' she says.
By this time, Chris needed help with everything; including showering and getting dressed. Most days, all he could do was sit and watch TV.
After struggling to cope for three months, Jane put her husband into a care home - a decision which leaves her plagued with guilt more than a year later.
'It's so heavy, the guilt you feel when [your loved one] is in a home and you're not caring for them yourself,' she says.
Since Chris went into the home at the end of 2023, Jane has visited him every single day.
'But I feel like I'm bringing him some sanity. It's a distressing place to be, due to the nature of the thing [dementia].'
Left with no official support and living alone, Jane described the frustrating feeling of being 'stuck' in knowing that Chris will never get better, but also being unable to move on.
Despite seeing her husband every day, Jane is grieving the vibrant, brilliant, knowledgeable man she met in 1992 in the jazz club.
These days Chris struggles with speaking and, while Jane is sure her husband recognises her, she is left with the pain of the unknown
'Knowing what's gone that is the hardest thing to cope with,' she says. 'I have no idea what's in his mind. He had so much knowledge, but where is it?
'There is the man that was and the man that's left.'
