Quote of note:
Bitterness, like that felt by Ms. Hayes, often is not the prevailing emotion. Often a person feels deep ties to a former husband or wife, or feels a responsibility borne of common experience and child-rearing.
"They are acting more like a brother or sister, or cousin or extended family member, or sometimes they have the joy of being grandparents together," said J. Donald Schumacher, chief executive of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, a public policy group representing hospices. He said the presence of former spouses at the hospital or deathbed, isn't uncommon anymore.
Past Divorce, Compassion at the End
By MATT RICHTEL
JUST because Karl Decker Hayes was a cruel husband doesn't mean he should die alone. So concluded his ex-wife, Millie Hayes, 67, an antiques shop owner in Monroe, La., who recalled living with a man so controlling he picked out her car and her clothes, and checked the walls for smudges after she cleaned house. They divorced in 1998.
"I despised what he had done to me," said Ms. Hayes, who, despite it all, became her ex-husband's caregiver when he developed Alzheimer's three years ago. "There is nobody else."
Her efforts are part of an emerging theme as the country ages.
In scenes exhibiting a vivid range of feelings - acrimony, compassion, rekindled love, abiding friendship - sick and dying Americans are being cared for by former spouses.
Hospice workers, academics and doctors say they are seeing more such cases, a development that is not surprising given the nation's changing demographics in the last 30 years.
The number of older Americans who have divorced and are not remarried has risen more than 60 percent in the last decade, according to the census bureau.
In 2003, the most recent year for which the census reports statistics, there were 2,726,000 divorced Americans older than 65 compared with 1,718,000 in 1994.
