The morning of June 12, 2018 started like any other in our little brick ranch outside Chicago. I was making coffee in the kitchen while Marcus read the paper at the table. He was 68 then, strong as ever, retired from the postal service after 42 years. I was 66, still volunteering at the library three mornings a week. We had been married 47 years, raised two sons, and were planning a cruise to Alaska that summer. Life felt steady and good.
Then I heard the newspaper hit the floor.
I turned and saw Marcus slumped in his chair, one side of his face drooping, his right arm hanging limp. He tried to speak but only a garbled sound came out. The fear in his eyes is something I still see every night when I close mine.
The ambulance ride was a blur. The ER doctors confirmed it: a massive ischemic stroke. They got him to the stroke unit fast, but the damage was done. When the neurologist came in the next day, he was gentle but honest. “Marcus has lost most function on his right side and the speech center was heavily affected. He may never speak clearly again. Walking will be extremely difficult.”
The first week in the hospital was pure hell. I slept in the chair by his bed. The kids flew in — Jamal from Atlanta, Tyrone from Detroit. We held hands around his bed and prayed he would wake up the same man. He did wake up, but the man who opened his eyes couldn’t say “I love you” anymore. He could only squeeze my hand and cry silent tears.
The hospital billing departments started calling before he was even discharged. Medicare Part B costs covered the acute care, but the real battle was about to begin.
The discharge planner sat us down and said the words I dreaded: “With this level of impairment, the safest option is a skilled nursing facility — at least for the first 100 days, then likely long-term placement.” Assisted living costs in the U.S. for someone needing full help with transfers and feeding were quoted at $7,200 a month. We had no long-term care insurance coverage at the time. I remember looking at Marcus and saying, “We’re going home. Together.”
The first month home was terrifying. I learned to change adult diapers, transfer him from bed to wheelchair using a gait belt, puree every meal, and give him his medications on time. I was 66 years old, 5’3″, 138 pounds. Marcus was 6’1″, 210 pounds even after losing weight in the hospital. Every transfer left me with back spasms.
The therapy sessions were limited. Medicare paid for only 20 days of in-home physical and speech therapy. After that, we paid out of pocket — $185 per session. After six weeks we were already dipping into our retirement savings strategy at an alarming rate.
I started waking up at 3 a.m. with my own heart racing from the stress. My blood pressure climbed. My knees ached from kneeling to help him. But every time Marcus looked at me with those eyes and squeezed my hand three times — our old signal for “I love you” — I knew I would keep going.
The kids begged me to consider assisted living. “Mom, you’re killing yourself.” I refused. “I promised him in 1971, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. I’m not breaking that promise.”
By the end of year two, I had lost 22 pounds. I had fallen twice myself trying to help him. The caregiving costs had eaten through $94,000 of our savings. The house we paid off in 2009 suddenly felt like a prison of love.
One night in March 2020, after a particularly bad day where Marcus had a seizure and I had to call 911 again, I sat on the bathroom floor and cried until I couldn’t breathe. That’s when I remembered the policy.
In 2016, a persistent insurance agent had come to our door. Marcus, ever the careful planner, had bought a long-term care insurance policy for both of us — $168 a month each. I had argued against it. “We’re healthy!” He had smiled and said, “Better to have it and not need it.” After he got sick I had forgotten all about it in the chaos.
The next morning I dug through the file cabinet with shaking hands and found the folder. I called the company that same day.
The process was slow but kind. They sent a nurse evaluator. She watched me try to help Marcus with dressing, bathing, and eating. He could no longer do any of those without full assistance. The certification came through in 23 days.
The policy paid out $4,800 per month toward in-home care.
That money was our miracle.
We hired a wonderful aide named Denise who came six hours a day, five days a week. She was trained in stroke recovery and treated Marcus with dignity. The speech therapist continued twice a week. I finally got to sleep through the night some nights. My own health began to stabilize. We even laughed again — Marcus would point at something funny on TV and make that grunting sound that became our new laugh.
We got three beautiful, precious years at home together.
In the spring of 2023, Marcus’s body started shutting down. Another small stroke. Then pneumonia. The doctors said the end was near. I brought his hospital bed into our living room so he could see the backyard he loved. I played his favorite jazz records. Jamal and Tyrone came and stayed for two weeks. We all took turns holding his hand.
He passed peacefully on a Sunday morning with my head on his chest, just like he always wanted. I whispered “I love you” three times into his ear as he left.
The funeral was full of postal workers, neighbors, and family. I wore the dress he bought me for our 40th anniversary. At the graveside I placed his favorite Chicago Bears cap on his casket and told him, “You kept your promise to love me. I kept mine to stay with you at home.”
The long-term care insurance coverage didn’t bring him back, but it gave us those three extra years of dignity and love in our own home. It saved me from total physical collapse. It saved our retirement savings from complete ruin. It let our sons see their father in his own chair, not in a facility.
Now, at 71, I live alone in the house that still smells like him sometimes. The loneliness hits hardest at night. I still set two places at the table out of habit. But every time I open that policy folder, I thank God Marcus insisted we buy it.
If you’re over 50 and reading this, please don’t wait. Talk to your spouse tonight. Call an agent tomorrow. The premiums feel expensive until the day you need them — then they become the difference between dignity and desperation.
Marcus couldn’t speak at the end, but his eyes said everything. And because of that policy, I could look back at him and say without guilt, “We did this together, at home, like we promised.”
That is the greatest gift any of us can give the person we love.