Memories of the Heart
A Story of Love, Loss, and Learning to Live Again
by
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“Gratitude is a memory of the heart” Rudy Sullivant once said, and he was right. It matters not if someone you lost has been gone a short time or a long time. Maybe what you are dealing with right now is living with someone you love who has a life limiting illness. Maybe what you are living with is the loss of that important person who was in your life. It may or may not have been a recent loss; but maybe now is the time you are ready to try to look at some small piece of it and try to heal a little bit inside. What matters is that whether they are gone or not, possibly you need a little help getting through some pieces of it that you are struggling with. It happens. We all struggle sometimes, it’s normal. It can be difficult to have gratitude while you’re grieving. I did struggle and sometimes I still do.
This is the story of how my late husband Jack, the love of my life, and I got through our 14 year battle with his lung cancer one day at a time with gratitude and grace. I cannot say it was easy, it was not. Yes, there were certainly better days than others, and we were blessed with many of them, some of which I will share with you. We had many beautiful things to be grateful for. Some days those things were easy to find, other days we struggled to search for them, but we found them. We had to. Life is not all sunshine and roses when you are faced with a life limiting disease, or a sudden death. I trust that our story will help you find some hope and encouragement to get through whatever situation you find yourself struggling with.
Don’t be offended by the humor you may run across in some pages of this book. Cancer is not funny, but Jack was. He had the best sense of humor of anyone I have ever met. He was funny long before he had cancer, and was funny long after! Cancer did not change that. He loved life and he loved to laugh and he made me laugh, a lot. So you will find humor intertwined in the pages of our story because that’s who we were together, and with our friends. He could make me laugh when I was in the middle of an emotional meltdown, which occurred more often than I would like to admit. I’m really not quite sure how he did that, but he did, and I loved him for it.
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About the Book
Anyone who has lived life long enough already knows that with tremendous love also comes tremendous loss. Often, we are faced with a life limiting illness before the loss, leaving us time to anticipate our next move. Other times, the loss comes suddenly, leaving us in shock and unsure where to turn next. Through both professional experiences as a hospice nurse and personal experiences as a widow, there is no question that Kerry Aldridge understands our pain, fears, and grief process.
In her touching memoir, Kerry shares the story of how she and her late husband, Jack, forged their way through his fourteen-year battle with lung cancer, one day at a time with gratitude and grace. While recalling stories from their life together and his subsequent illness, Kerry addresses her difficult transition from being a hospice nurse to being the wife of a loved one whose health was failing. In addition to providing valuable insight regarding the different facets of grief, Kerry also provides reassurance that the more we understand death and grief, the less we have to fear.
Memories of the Heart shares the story of one woman’s journey as her husband battled terminal illness and she learned to find the balance between her job as a hospice nurse and her soul’s purpose to provide comfort and love.
About the Author
Kerry Aldridge is a Registered Nurse with over twenty years of experience in medical surgical, rehabilitation, cardiac, oncology, and most recently, in the hospice arena. She feels there is nothing more sacred than helping a person transition from this life to the next. Kerry, now a widow, lives in Sammamish, Washington.