Unfortunately for me, Nancy confirmed my fears. She urged me to take Aaron to see Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, chief of the Alzheimer’s Unit at UCLA Medical Center. I promised Nancy I would make an appointment to see Dr. Cummings … and then I didn’t. Aaron had always been a sharp mind, and now he seemed lost. I didn’t know what to do with that. A few weeks later, I ran into Nancy, and she asked if we had been to see Dr. Cummings yet. Before I could say anything, Nancy was wagging her finger in my face. “I know you haven’t made an appointment because I called Dr. Cummings and asked him.”
I called and made the appointment the very next day. I very casually told Aaron that his regular doctor wanted him to see this “other doctor.” I had to be very careful because the last time we had been to UCLA, it was a very negative experience for Aaron. I’m not sure exactly how I did it, but somehow I got Aaron into the car for the short ride to see Dr. Cummings.
I knew the doctor wasn’t going to tell me anything about my husband’s condition that I didn’t already know. More than anything it was just a formality.
Aaron knew why we were there as soon as he read the sign for the Alzheimer’s Unit. He looked at me with a very sad expression on his face. “I may have to kill you.”
Once we were seated in Dr. Cummings’s office, he asked Aaron who the president of the United States was, what day of the week it was, and what month we were in. They were all ridiculously simple questions, and Aaron couldn’t answer any of them. I turned my head and cried. If I had any denial left in me, it was all gone now.
How could this happen to my brilliant husband? I was suddenly reminded that when I was pregnant, I never wanted to read all those books expectant mothers read. I figured whatever happens, happens. That was my approach to life. Aaron’s cancer had made sense, but this was not a scenario I had ever imagined. Especially not for someone as imaginative and present as Aaron had been. The realization of what was happening to my husband took my breath away. I didn’t want him to see me crying, but it was too late.
Alzheimer’s is a brand name for dementia. We never found out 100 percent whether Aaron had Alzheimer’s or dementia because he never followed through on the full battery of tests. It hardly mattered. They’re different diseases but equally cruel and abusive to those afflicted.
I tried to keep things status quo throughout Aaron’s illness. I made excuses for him when he didn’t want to be seen by people and couldn’t handle social situations. He was never particularly interested in going out when he was well, so this wasn’t a good barometer of whether he knew his mind was failing him. In the beginning I wasn’t certain whether he knew what was happening. Looking back now, I think on some level, he must have known.
I thought it might help to get him out of the house, but he wouldn’t go and I couldn’t force him. I continued going to dinner parties for Aaron’s sake and mine. I went alone to places we would have gone as a couple. I made excuses for him and told people he wasn’t feeling well because that’s what Aaron wanted me to say. I don’t know why, but I suddenly thought about all the times that Aaron would call the hostess of whichever party we were attending and insist we be seated together. Typically, couples sit apart so they can socialize, and I enjoyed sitting next to someone new and hearing about their life experiences. I was the shy one, but it was Aaron who didn’t like sitting apart.
On this particular night, I realized I couldn’t maintain the facade. I didn’t want to lie anymore. It was towards the end when he really wasn’t himself anymore that I needed a dose of reality. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me, but I didn’t want to live this way. It was such a feeling of relief to finally be truthful and say that Aaron didn’t want to come to the party; that he couldn’t come. I realized as soon as I finished the sentence that everyone knew the truth anyway. As relieved as I was, I also felt guilty as if I were betraying my husband.
Believe it or not, there were times when Aaron could still fake it. I would hear him on the phone with friends telling them that he had been at the office every day the week before. It broke my heart because he wanted so badly to believe he had been at the office. It reminded me of when he was still healthy and he told stories from when he was just nineteen years old and served in the Air Force during World War II. I never knew what was truth and what was fiction, but it didn’t matter then because the stories were so entertaining.
I came home from the dinner party that night and told Aaron the truth. “I told everyone at the party you didn’t want to go.” He was mortified. “I can’t keep covering for you.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “Our friends keep looking at me like I have two heads.”
After that, when we got invitations, I would RSVP for one. I went alone and nobody questioned me about Aaron anymore.
For most of my life, I had been Mrs. Aaron Spelling. For thirty-eight years his vision and creativity had defined our lives as a family. I thought about my own mother, how she had depended on my father her whole life and how angry she was. I was angry now too but in a different way. For my mother, on the surface at least, it was about money. When I married Aaron, she advised me to have what she called a “push-key” account of my own money in case the marriage didn’t work out. This was never my fear with Aaron. We had built everything together. I had always believed in him. When he had his moments of frustration with partners, I told him he didn’t need them and encouraged him to fulfill his dream of having his own production company. I had come a long way from sitting in the car while he met with the president of ABC-TV.
Weeks before we were married, Aaron’s business manager had sent me a very aggressive prenuptial agreement. It was incredibly hurtful. Ironic too because at that time, I actually had more money than Aaron did. I had invested all of my money from the modeling I had done and created quite a little nest egg for myself. Aaron, on the other hand, had just started his own production company and in the divorce from Carolyn had signed away his half of the house they owned to avoid any acrimony. Aaron saw how ridiculous the prenuptial agreement was and literally tore it up right in front of me.
Over the course of thirty-eight years, I managed and invested all of our money. I don’t think Aaron really ever knew how much money his shows had earned. I remember when the house next to ours in Malibu went up for sale and he wanted to buy it so that we could expand our existing house. Aaron asked me if we could afford it. I had to laugh. He was a generous spirit.
I was so naive. As I entered my fifties, I assumed we would be enjoying our first grandchild and maybe doing a little more traveling. I had raised my children, so now I saw myself busting loose a little, spending more time with my girlfriends. Instead, here I was at home watching the Alzheimer’s quietly ravage my husband. It was so isolating. Many of our friends were already fading out of our lives. Our son, Randy, was doing the best he could to be there for his father, but it was proving to be too much for him.
Our daughter, Tori, had been incommunicado since getting an abrupt divorce from her husband, Charlie. Aaron had not been feeling well when we were planning her wedding, yet he mustered up the strength to walk his daughter down the aisle and be a gracious father of the bride at her wedding. The next morning he didn’t have it in him to go up to the Bel-Air Hotel for the post-wedding brunch, so I went without him.
We actually hadn’t heard from Tori since she left The Manor after her wedding reception. Aaron was disappointed about her divorce, and since then she had refused to speak to any of us on the phone. Not even her little brother.
My therapist understood the reasons behind my anger and assured me that it was quite common for spouses and caregivers to feel this way. She encouraged me to get out for a bit of self-preservation. She said it was like the oxygen masks on the airplane. I needed to take care of myself first so I could continue taking care of Aaron. Easier said than done.
Every time I went out to lunch with girlfriends, I would get six phone calls from Aaron asking when I would be home. I knew it was the Alzheimer’s talking, but it was still tough. Sometimes I w
ould just be arriving at the restaurant and he was already on the phone, “Are you through yet?”
I would try to explain, but he would grow agitated and unreasonable. “Are you on your way home?” There was nothing I could say or do. I wanted so badly to somehow revive his mind, make him remember who he was. Who we were.
One day I needed desperately to get out for a while, so I left Randy with Aaron. When I returned I was blindsided by the news that Tori and her new husband had stopped by to visit with Aaron. Tori and Randy had orchestrated a plan for Tori to stop by while I was out. It was hurtful but I understood Tori was in every way Randy’s big sister, so he did as she requested. By this point, Aaron had suffered a stroke and was critically ill, so I’m not sure whether he was even aware that Tori was there.
A couple weeks later, I could see that the end was approaching quickly, so I started calling Aaron’s friends, asking them to please come visit and say their goodbyes. Randy’s friends had taken him on a much-needed guys’ trip and they were flying back that day, so I texted him and I also texted one of his friends to call me as soon as they landed. We hadn’t heard from Tori since she came by with her husband, so I sent her an e-mail hoping she would acknowledge it.
20
The End and the Beginning
While Aaron was bedridden, I learned to use a computer and surf the Internet. Shopping online for collectibles became my outlet. We had become accidental recluses. Staying at his side wasn’t heroic, it was where I wanted to be and where so many other wives, husbands, and children remain when a loved one suffers the scourge of Alzheimer’s. I felt grateful that we could keep Aaron at home and not have to rely on our health insurance to pay for an Alzheimer’s unit at a hospital.
Somewhere I had read a disturbing statistic that a high percentage of spouses and caregivers suffer strokes and heart attacks from the stress of looking after a partner or family member with Alzheimer’s. We had nurses and household help, but what I didn’t have was another family member to shoulder the emotional responsibility. It was all on me, and it got harder every day.
This was my inspiration for getting away overnight every now and then to our house in Malibu. I would go there just to sleep. I would lay there at night on what I still called my side of the bed and look out the picture window in the master bedroom. I felt as if I were on a ship, sailing on the ocean.
The truth is, I’ve never been a beach person. Aaron loved the beach, and about forty years ago, we bought our house in Malibu. Aaron wanted it so badly, and even though we couldn’t afford it, we bought it as Aaron’s retreat. It was half the house then. Some years later, we bought the house next door to ours when it went on the market, and we combined the two of them.
I’ve never liked the feeling of sand under my feet, but Aaron, Tori, and Randy loved it. On my overnights in Malibu, I would sit outside on our deck remembering all of us walking on the shore together with our dogs. Everyone was in their bare feet, except for me. I always wore my tennis shoes. I remembered the sound of the crashing waves, the smell of the salt water, and the smiles.
Malibu has grown since we bought our first house there. I used to buy groceries at a small market nearby. Now there is a gourmet country market where you can buy the most delicious food. At the Malibu Country Mart, which is at the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Cross Creek, there are trattorias, sushi restaurants, and even a Greek restaurant where you can have a nice dinner out. There are upscale shops like James Perse and Ralph Lauren. The paparazzi hang out at the first pedestrian crosswalk at the Country Mart waiting for a famous face to show up, which they often do. While still rustic and peaceful there, it’s just more glamorous.
There is the legend of wild parrots in Malibu. People say that years ago, one lone parrot escaped from his cage from one of the homes up on the hillside. Somehow one parrot became two and then they became four and so on. It’s usually on Sunday afternoons that you can hear the wild parrots squawking. If you know where to look, you can see all the green parrots hiding up in the palm trees. Somehow they know it’s Sunday and they come out to sing.
After Aaron died I spent more time in Malibu. More than I thought I would. The day following his death when his body was no longer in our home was the first day in almost thirty-nine years that I hadn’t had to wake up and take care of him in some way. His funeral was very private and ended up just being family and close friends. I had originally planned to have a memorial service since Aaron was a public figure and there were fans of his shows all over the world. Then I thought, “Who would I invite?” “Would anyone want to come?” “Do I have the energy to plan a memorial?” I wasn’t sure so I talked myself out of doing it.
It was after the funeral when my friend Willy went home after staying with me for three nights that I really felt Aaron’s absence. I missed the sound of his voice and even the smell of his tobacco pipe. I also had to rehome his little white toy poodle, Precious, who had sat on the bed with him all day, every day for the two years that he was ill. Now that he was gone, she was fighting with my dog, Annie. Whenever I showed Annie any affection, Precious would get very feisty and attack her. I found Precious a home where she would be the lap dog of an elderly woman who was looking for a companion dog. Precious would go back to being the queen of the house the way she had been here. I knew she would be happier that way than at The Manor, which now seemed so empty.
There was something about the way I was feeling that surprised me. It wasn’t the moments of suffocating grief or overwhelming confusion. It wasn’t the loneliness. I expected all of those feelings. They rolled in like waves, and I learned to ride them up to their crest and then back down. What I hadn’t expected was that I would feel absent.
It was seven or eight months after Aaron died that I moved out of Tori’s bedroom and back into the master bedroom. My decorator and dear friend Robert Dally came out of retirement to help me. I couldn’t be in the room the way it had been when Aaron was dying. For some reason, I also didn’t want to be in there if it looked the way it had when it was “ours.”
The room needed to be my own. We started by ordering new carpet and then new fabric. Once it looked entirely different, I moved back in.
Confirmation that I was truly on my own came via the United States Postal Service. It was an invitation, and for the first time ever, it wasn’t addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Spelling or even to The Spellings. It was addressed to just me alone. I held it in my hand for a minute and absorbed the significance. While Aaron had been ill, I had been out to numerous dinner parties without him. Because I was still the better half of Aaron Spelling, even when he wasn’t with me, the conversation was focused on him. His whereabouts, his shows, his talents. I soon discovered that people have a tough time making conversation with you altogether after your husband dies. When he was sick, people asked how he was feeling. Now that he was gone and I was a widow, people were uncomfortable. They stared at me not knowing what to say.
I suppose in some ways I saw this day coming even before Aaron was sick. When we were first married, Aaron gave me some of his credit cards to use for household expenses and personal items. I made the assumption that he hadn’t had time to add me as an additional user on the cards. They all said “Mrs. Aaron Spelling.” It didn’t take me long to figure out that this was how he saw me, and this was how he wanted it. Over the years when I approached the topic of getting a card in my own name, Aaron would say he didn’t want to pay duplicate credit card fees. I knew this was just an excuse, but I also knew that I had married a very old-fashioned man, so I didn’t push it.
Eventually I established credit in my own name. My first credit card was an American Express card. I loved seeing my name on the card. Instead of letting our business manager handle the statement, I made sure to pay it on time myself. I can’t explain why it meant so much to me, but it did. I had been waiting for an opportunity to pick up the check at a restaurant. I remember the first time I did it with Aaron. He definitely didn’t see it coming, a
nd he sure didn’t know what to think. Randy was also with us, and he was very surprised.
I understand it now. I wanted to feel that I was equal. In a strange way, it was like having the right to vote.
The thought of eating alone in a restaurant didn’t bother me after Aaron had passed away. What I dreaded was the thought of a dinner party full of couples. Fortunately, the first dinner party I attended on my own was given by friends who had really stood by me in the thick of it. It was a rough evening, but it was the push I needed. After months of feeling disconnected and depressed, I woke up the next morning to the realization that I was still young and full of life. I missed my husband, but somehow I needed to figure out how to begin again.
I had no idea what this meant or how I was going to do it, but I knew I had to. I don’t know why, but my mind wandered to the memories of being out with Aaron when every aspiring actor, writer, and producer came out of the woodwork. This happened at restaurants, bowling alleys, you name it. There was always someone who wanted to give Aaron a head shot or a script or pitch him a story. They always wanted to know the secret to his success. Aaron’s answer was always the same: “Follow Your Dreams.”
Aaron often used the phrase “stardust” when he met a young actor or actress whom he thought had star quality. When he talked about people who would stand out in a crowd, he always said they had stardust in their eyes. I suddenly realized I needed to have stardust in my eyes. I needed to pick myself up and believe in myself. I wasn’t sure what dreams the stardust would lead me to, but I told myself I should make sure I was seeing stardust and not just dust. They were two very different things.
Aaron Spelling as “Jerry Lane” on stage in 1944.
The original Playbill of the 1944 USO production of Wine, Women & Spain.
Candy at Last Page 10
