On the Resignation of Sandra Day O'Connor
07/12/05
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I have considerable angst about the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor. Like many, I fear that President Bush’s nominee may tip a fragile balance, unraveling Roe vs. Wade as well as affirmative action, causing the Supreme Court to list to a conservative extreme.

Yet what saddens me about Sandra Day O’Connor’s resignation is the personal reason for her decision. Among all the articles recounting her rise to the Supreme Court, her impact on opportunities for women in the judicial system, her moderating swing vote, what stays with me is an interview with her son Brian O’Connor.

There I read that her husband of more than 50 years, John O’Connor, suffers from Alzheimer’s disease — and it is worsening. Increasingly dependent, he has been seen spending days with O’Connor at the court, resting in his wife’s office while she presided.

To a court spokesperson O’Connor was quoted as saying that after 24 years on the bench it was time to “spend time with my husband.” Yet really — it is too late. That’s the damnable shame about this damnable disease.

I suspect O’Connor knows that. She knows that the time she needs to spend with her husband will not be like the time spent in years past when they were raising children together, forging stellar careers which made each proud of the other, meeting and keeping good friends, getting away just the two of them as schedules permitted. Nor will it include that intimate moment just before sleep when in bed they reach out a hand, touch gently and smile at the wonder of all their years together.

That time is gone or going quickly. Which is why I suspect when Brian O’Connor asked his mother if there were some tears as well as a smile on her face after making her decision, she said, “Oh, I think there were more tears.” 1

In sickness and in health — until death do us part. We make that pact with each other when we marry. If we make it in our 20’s even 30’s we do it blithely, blindly, trusting the odds are in our favor. Only rarely are we jolted by the reality of what we have promised — a husband home from the war in Iraq missing multiple limbs, a tragic accident, some degenerative disease at an early age.

More often, making good on that promise will come due at an advanced age, a time when both physical energy and resources are ebbing. And the good news, bad news, is that we live in a country where fine medical care means we live longer, increasing our chances of being afflicted by some type of dementia.

I watched my father die of Alzheimer’s. Saw my mother’s shame as he regressed from confident, successful, trial lawyer, to some version of his infantile self, unable to remember that you need to take off your pajamas before getting into your daily clothing.

I remember my mother saying to me, “I wish it were cancer. If it were cancer he could tell me what he was feeling, we could do something.” And then, almost in a whisper, “And there would be an end to it…”

We were riding in the car at the time, taking a short excursion to the store. Dad could still be left alone for an hour, or so we thought. But that day, when we returned, we found him standing at the kitchen window, watching and waiting like a child that feared his mother would never return.

Seeing him glare at us accusingly as we pulled into the driveway, mother shook her head and said, “Raising you children was draining. Sometimes I wondered if I’d survive those days — the four of you needing me. But it got a little easier, every day. With this, every day is a little worse.”

Sandra Day O’Connor will go from being a Supreme Court Justice, the pivotal swing vote on the most powerful judicial bench in the land, to being more mother than wife to the man she loves. It’s a new challenge, no doubt. But one where there will inevitably be more tears than smiles.

Fortunately, her income and her husband’s income over the years ensure that she will be able to afford support in her endeavor — in-home care for a time, the best institutional care if necessary.

Yet even that won’t always ease the burden. When the home care aide would come to do things mother couldn’t do any longer — give Dad a shower, lift him from the toilet — my mother would leave, busy herself with errands, walk the local shopping malls. She would have preferred to be at home, but there she felt obligated to make conversation with the aide. Being shy that would have taken what little energy she had left. So she stayed away, exiled for hours.

As the disease progressed, Dad’s mid-night wandering would wake mother almost nightly. We hired another aide for those hours and told my mother she needed to sleep in the guest bedroom. But that didn’t prevent Dad from knocking at her door, begging to be let in, then demanding to be let, the knocks louder, more insistent, maybe violent.

Lack of sleep, constant worry, each day a new unraveling of the brain so that you never quite knew what facet of a disintegrating personality would greet you in the morning — my mother was losing the man she loved, the haven of her home, and her own physical health. A fall, a broken wrist, fragile spinal disks crumbling — all symptoms of what it costs to keep a vow.

But that is the scenario for those who can afford expensive in-home support. Not the case for the vast majority. For most there will be no respite unless family live near, can take time away from 9-5 jobs, their own family responsibilities, to help — daily.

More often an elderly husband or wife will have little choice but to admit their loved one to a care facility. And though there may be some relief in that, the cost could well drain whatever financial security they had remaining. Alzheimer’s patients can linger a decade, sometimes longer.

So I am saddened for Sandra Day O’Connor. Saddened for all who have been diagnosed with this disease and all of us who fear that such a disease is lodged in our genetics.

Stem cell research might yet offer hope — if the President relents, and there are several new treatments on the horizon, which might benefit the next generation. But not in time for John O’Connor or his wife. “I feel like I’m starting to climb down off the summit.” O’Connor said at one point. And that’s the hard truth.

Honors are due Sandra Day O’Connor. Not just for her laudable career, but also for choosing to sacrifice the summit for the sake of an oath taken long ago.
She joins the ranks of all those caregivers who often go unheralded.

The ones who can never resign.




1New York Times 7/2/05


©Colette Volkema DeNooyer 2005


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