All Comments on 'Brownwood: A Long Goodbye'

This is a horror story about a woman who is being raped over and over again, and no one will protect her!!!

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ZK

I wish I could give this 10 stars.

I watched your story in real life with a friend. His wife could remember everyone but him. She kept asking who the strange man hanging around was.

He eventually had to leave for her own peace of mind as well as his.

He never saw her again until her funeral.

He also never had a relationship with a woman until after her death and then it was only for mutual companionship rather than love.

This has to be one of the saddest stories in the site.

You just killed me... but reading this tells me you have had some personal experience in the pain of watching a loved one slip away, turning away from a life partner of many years. You described it so well, and then at the very end, you took the final shot - making the reader question the decisions made for both to move on by having her connect the bonsai tree with the love from her life before the disease struck.

I can only say I'm glad he would never KNOW that it happened, as he tried to move on... but for those who suffer with a loved one with some form of Dementia, the last sentence was a knife to the heart...

Begrudgingly, I cannot deny you 5 stars for an agonizing, heart-rending story of love destroyed through no fault of either partner, but destroyed no less.

These types of stories are so sad but well written.

Can't pretend to know much about dementia, but I find it interesting how someone can forget about the largest part of their life and yet still make new memories and connections. Seems more like brain damage than a degenerative disease.

Personally I'm all for dignitas at the first signs of dementia.

Fantastic story! But I dont think i'll read anymore Brownwood if they bring this many tears. Guess I'll just get drunk and write some country music! 5*

This is a really good, but tortuous story. The brevity is good - it says all it needs to say.

Very engaging story. Living with dementia spouse can or does break one’s heart.

The MC has some dark thought. I have questions of his life comitments.

Why divorce and annulment?..

LOVE slap-hap-papy #9

Very powerful story. Thank you.

A sad story of one of the ways life will torture us at will.

Not enough stars in the sky to award to this story.

sad that so many wonderful loving people have their lives end like this. after a lifetime of loving, bringing joy into a relationship to have your brain turn on you make you forget everything. hurt so many people you love

Another 82-year-old who was more than a little overwhelmed by this tale.

Brilliant understanding of the aging human condition.

I’m 82 years old, and this brought my tears.

Blasted onion ninjas always seem to know when I'm reading this story. Different take for me this time as my father has finally died from a slow moving yet unstoppable cancer. Over the past year or so his condition started seriously affecting his mental faculties. It was a very difficult time for my mother who has her own health challenges, although nothing as acute as his.

I feel a bit of empathy for Nathan's children, but have experienced some unexpected emotions which in hind sight should have been expected. A combination of relief for my mother's sake, anger and resentment towards her because she had already mostly processed her emotions and to my mind seemed to take his passing too easily, and a nice wrapping of guilt to bundle it all up.

The story makes me pause and rethink it all, which is really all one can ask for from the pen of another. If you're still out there, Thank you Mr. Beast.

In the business of psychology we call Alzheimer's "the long goodbye" because it forces you to bid farewell to the person you love and to have a strained relationship with a stranger for all intents and purposes. In some instances patients revert to childhood as in this story, though in my experience it is to adolescence. Unfortunately this leads to a lot of abandonment because of the heartache of having your own mother not recognize you, or wife such as in this case. It's sad all the way around, excellent story though.

About the saddest story I ever read. D

Incredibly moving story. The last line broke me. I've watched someone close to me descend the awful spiral of dementia and know how it affects people. Watching my partners father slip away an inch at a time and watching her suffer daily with what it did to her dad is just a personal hell that never ends and is a daily torture. One of the worst parts is always wondering if a bit of the real person is hidden away somewhere and can't get out but is aware of what's happening to them and others. So your finishing line really tugged at me. There is no right or wrong answers when someone is trapped in this sort of hell. You wrote this very sympathetically so thank you for that. BardnotBard

I agree!

If you have had a loved one afflicted with Alzheimer's then you know that there is literally no worse illness for an adult with maybe a couple of uncommon exceptions. It really, really is just soul destroying for all loved ones.

For sure one of the saddest stories in LW! 5*

I presume “Bobby” was just in her declining mind…..I mean, surely the facility she was in wouldn’t allow an actual lover to visit?

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On that assumption, this tale was grippingly sad.

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5 *****

This is an age old story have seen repeated again and again.

In both my wife's family and mine no one has had to deal with this, and I am thankful.

I know what it is like to watch a spouse slowly die, but the enemy has been cancer. Is there a difference, i some ways no for the grief brings great pain, but at least to the end there is shared love.

Thanks for the poignant story. The impact, the giving of understanding to the loss of others makes it a 5.

Confusing ending... Is he completely lost to her or is he, as the ending implies, still in her mind somewhere... will we ever know ?? I sure don't know.

OMG!!! Damn it. I kinda wish I hadn't read this one cause it was way too heartbreaking. There was no one to hate. They were all victims from a very cruel illness. The story was incredible though and my eyes were watering a little too much!!!! I loved it and hated it at the same time!!!!! FIVE frickin stars!!!!!

Wow, just wow.

there are only losers when alzheimers takes over . five stars and some tears from me too .

Man, though I truly enjoyed this story, it did truly broke my heart. With tears in my eyes, I give it 5 stars ⭐ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

Ouch!!

Very good, though the ending was a little tough! Sometimes, when one loves another, one may have to modify one's belief systems (principles) a bit. The ending makes it sound like he would never visit her again . . . even as just a distant, old friend, perhaps because it was too difficult for HIM! He does need to get on with his life, but that shouldn't mean completely abandoning her, even if she didn't know who he was or even that she had mentally abandoned him first.

She had her confused but relatively happy life. He needs to build his own clear and straightforward (and hopefully happy) one . . . but there could (and in my opinion, should) be some occasional interaction . . . perhaps appreciated by both sides, even if only understood by one. The trouble is, that would require significant change and acceptance of a very different loving 'friendship' sort of relationship, only truly understood on his part. That would indeed be terribly difficult . . . but with love, such changes are always possible.

I can empathize with a loved one slowly forgetting you. Having a loved one forget you and give their love to someone else must be a level of hell that would be hard to live with.

I should have stopped reading almost at the beginning but couldn't. I can only praise your talent while damning it at the same time with equal ferocity; you have succeeded in evoking great heartache.

Keep writing but please direct your creativity down a different path next time. Thank you.

MLJ

Dementia/Alzheimer's is the most terrible disease there is (I think). It robs the victim and others of so much. You managed to convey a very good synopsis of what people go through and how heartbreaking it is.

Heart hurting.

Well written. Thought provoking. That last line was just heartbreaking.

Glad he moved on. Maybe her son can care for her...

Really fine writing. Thanks.

I know this has such a sad feeling going on , if you haven’t had contact with Dementia you don’t know how lucky you are, but as a writer you have written a story with a lot of feelings that lots will understand, really good descriptions

To close to home..

But keep writing.. you Are very gd.

Second time reading this short masterpiece. It broke my heart again.

Read it once, favorited it, gave it a 5. Read it again, would give it another 5 if I could...

I’m sure you must have had some experience with someone who had that terrible illness.

Truly well written and from your heart.

My mother is in a care home with Dementia.

It truly is the long goodbye.

It’s only Life, yet I’m crying like a baby. Great, sad human story.

Wow ...

Touching story with no chance of a here after. Do they really allow conjugal interaction in these homes?

Very sad. My mother had Alzheimer's and my father described it as a 'long goodbye'.

Wow, powerful story.

Wonderful story; one can't say she was really a cheating wife, she was a broken mind

Wow... incredibly moving. From a master of another subgenre here. Richard Gerald quality.

Heart-rending

Fkn sad story

Jessica fucking Christ. That was heartbreaking. Bravo.

That last line is haunting me.

Simon_Masters

Powerful stuff, gets me every time.

Simon Masters

Is it depressing is it confronting does it make you think and feel and physically react to the words? Then it was a great story.....

KMN. A terrible story!

This not adultery nor is Nathan a cuckold. This is just tragic biology, coincidence, and a crappies run facility. Poignant, sad story. They still belong to each other. What happened with her dementia should not ruin at all the love they had. The real her died some time ago. Dementia is horrible. My mother had it and she is a shell of what she once was.

This story is unlikely as two people with dementia wouldn't both be vibing with the same story and constantly being told about foreign names and concepts would incite them. But damn that was sad

Tragic and romantic. Hard combination to write. Well done. Fully deserving Five Stars. I have seen dementia and Alzheimers first hand in close friends whose marriage of 46 years was a casualty of it. Killed a wonderful woman like a sister to me and left a wreck of the husband who was like a brother. So I know that pain well. Something like a living death.

Excellent but really depressing story.

broke my heart well done damn

The care facility should have been sued into the ground. What a colossal screw up. And yes dementia really can be that bad. A rough topic. So sad. It is neither of their fault. Bad things happen to good people.

Five stars is too low a score for this story. Such a powerful story that must have been inspired by the lose of a very special person. The emotions revealed here brought back all the pain and some of the happiness my wife and I felt as we watched her 84 year old mother slowly fade away until we were thought of as her oldest friend or the man she was seeing before she had to go back home to her mother. My father-in-law was taken by cancer many years before Mom came to live by us so we were her support team but this story reflects the pain we felt when she needed more care than we could provide. In the end her reunion with Dad was the saddest blessing she could receive.

With a mom who had Alz on the last 2 years of her life and before that my dad had already the dawning of dementia, I can relate what the impact of the disease. It is an experience I do not wish even to my worst enemies. DFWBeast you are the best!!

Heartrending - especially that final line. Why on earth did he not stick with her as he had vowed, though?

Heartbreaking. Just absolutely devastating.

And this comment, from a BTB fan.

No betrayal. No ninja spec-ops superhero. No indignant justification.

Just sadness for everyone's loss, and even more for the tiny, quiet moments when the real Eva struggles to emerge from the fog.

This should be up at the top of the list with Todd172's offerings.

I find myself wanting to protect Eva, while obviously laying no blame anywhere.

The greatest tragedy I have read in decades of coming to this site.

Damn you, DFWBeast. Life is not fair. You've proved it.

Wow. Heartbreaking. I am sorry but this is not cheating. She has dementia. The husband did not need to react like this. It is selfish. They could have changed her environment, implemented the patient policies, put her in a room with another woman, a whole host of things. If that was my wife with dementia (and I have a mother with Alzheimer's), I would not abandon her. That is what the vow means. That is his wife. The supposed adultery means nothing and could be fixed because she has dementia. And the ending means she at times knows what she has lost. 5/5 for originality but a husband who chose differently.

Wow, damn, you got me! Very powerful, impactful story, with real people that we care about as readers. Thanks for this.

You killed me - and that surprised me. Thank you for sharing your work, it is beautifully crafted

Extraordinarily well crafted story! You played me like a violin with the ending. 5+

Very touching, emotional story. Thank you for sharing it.

Some will say "in sickness or health" but I'm pretty sure they would do what he did as well. 5 stars

This is the weirdest story I've read yet from DFWBeast. Thus, my low rating...

A great story, but as one who turned 70 on Wednesday, dementia has touched family and friends. This hit too close to home but it deserves the highest marks.

He had no choice...

dude ya killed me

Part of me wanted to rate this a 1 it was so depressing and sad but that would be unfair. 5 stars, god that was an emotional beatdown to read.

One if the best stories I have ever read. Heartfelt and heart-rending.

On second reading, still a sad and sweet story worthy of the five stars I originally gave it. Well done.

Hooked

Gut wrenching

5 stars. A moving story.

I smiled an ironical smile as I noted in the Similar Stories bar is the story "Already Gone".

I could not have thought of a more apt description for someone suffering dementia.

Loved one, do not look for them in the shell that remains, they are Already Gone.

really sad

Wow!

The most important thing for a relative of a person with severe dementia is to get some distance. Realizing that in spirit, the other is no longer the same person he was. Giving yourself the freedom again that the other no longer perceives you for who you are.

Dementia is the worst chronic disease imaginable. If I was aware I had it, I would "take care" of it so my family and myself will not suffer. This story is so sad.

Heart breaking! How deeply painful! 5*s

This is just so sad. Both my parents had dementia & I’ve been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. The worst thing is not the disease because at some stage, I won’t know my own name but the fact that my wife has cheated and can’t wait for me to die, is just too much to bear.

Oh well, “bring on the dancing horses”.

I've had this happen to both of my parents. I can easily put myself in Nathan's shoes. I'm not sure of the divorce angle though.

A very good story

Congratulations, DFWBeast. You are only the second LitE author to write a story that almost had me sobbing like a little boy who's just been told his beloved dog has died. And it only took two sentences to do it. The last two sentences almost wrecked me. The only other story to do this to me is called 'Word of Mouth' by Igreenwood. It's quite similar to this.

I understand in a vague, second hand sort-of-way, how Nathan felt. My grandmother passed away 2, almost 3, years ago due to dementia. Because I live in a different part of the province, 900 kms away, I didn't get to visit her as often as I would have liked, but seeing her slip away was not nice, the little I did see. Having it happen to a spouse must be infinitely worse. Especially if they're still 'younger'. Grandma was almost 98, so she'd lived a full life.

A very good story, very well told. Thank you.

LWlurker

No residential mental health facility would allow such an intimate relationship to develop involving a patient under their care who is not competent to provide consent for sexual activity. The facility and it's leadership would face both criminal and civil liability for the sexual assault of a cognitively impaired patient. Assigning a staff member to supervisor her behavior as their sole responsibility each shift would be far less costly than attempting to fund a legal defense against such well founded charges.

Very sad the truth of illness that can take anyone of us from the ones we love

I felt so sorry for Nathan and Eva because her illness was the cause of her cheating.

My problem of the story was because Nathan and Eva were well off, he should had hired a 24-hours help as housekeeper or as watcher for Eva. If Nathan had hired help, the cheating would not occurred.

Really heartbreaking

Heartbreaking, but beautifully written.

Not pointless. So terribly relevant these days when so many live long enough to suffer this terrible affliction.

Sad but seriously pointless.

That was rather soul crushing.