We said goodbye to a woman named Mary Huberty today. Mary and her husband Dick are great friends of my in-laws and their four sons are contemporaries of Mrs. D and her sister. Mary died last week after about a ten-year bout with Alzheimer's. She was only 67.
I met Mary about a year before Mrs. D and I got married. Mary was, to put it mildly, a dynamo. She was smart, organized, extremely gracious and probably could have given Martha Stewart a run for her money when it comes to the domestic arts. Her four sons are all highly accomplished fellows, including one who is a Catholic priest. Mary and Dick did just about everything right in their lives and when Dick was ready to retire about a decade ago, it looked like they would have a wonderful time growing old together. But the diagnosis came.
I didn't see that much of Mary over the last few years; she and Dick spent a lot of their time in Arizona. It was not a lot of fun for them; Alzheimer's essentially strips away those things that make you human, bit by bit. After awhile, the woman who ran one of the most organized kitchens in the St. Paul suburbs would find herself standing there, trying to remember what precisely you do with a saute pan. I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like and I hope that I never find out.
It's sad in a thousand ways, but one thing is assured: Mary is, most assuredly, in a better place now. It's been said in this space before -- nothing is promised. Still, no matter what, promise remains.
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