[Piano music]
Manny and I met in 1959,
and we were married in 1960.
Being with Manny was a wonderment.
He had a smile that could light up the world.
Our life was really in museums.
Going to the galleries, usually people just walk by.
No, he would sit and contemplate.
I was a very dry academic. I studied biostatistics, epidemiology,
so he educated me in art. He says,
"Oh, look at that. Did you notice that? Ooh, look, that color."
It wasn't that he was a
profound connoisseur.
It was just his delight and his pleasure and sharing that with me.
We would also go to the theater a lot–three or four times a week was not
unusual for us. On this one occasion,
we came out of the theater,
and the streets were just packed with people
and I'm walking and walking through the crowd, and I turned around,
and he wasn't there. And I'm looking for him and I'm calling.
I don't see him. I am now panic-stricken.
The only thing I could think to do was to go to the nearest policeman and say,
"My husband is missing." We get to Times Square.
He is sitting there, by the table and chairs, in perfect shape.
The episodes started to occur more often than not.
He started to forget where he was or what he was doing.
Something was very wrong.
We went to the neurologist. I'll never forget,
he said, "He's in the early stages of dementia."
We were just devastated.
We both felt we had a lot to live for; we had each other.
I said, "We're not staying home.
We're going to continue doing everything we have ever done.
Traveling, going to the theater, going to museums."
I took Manny to this art class at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
for people with dementia.
The focus is on inclusivity. The art teacher always says,
"So tell me what you see." They can do it verbally;
they can do it with their eyes, with their smile.
Manny was so hooked. All I had to say was, "Okay, Manny,
today we're going to the Metropolitan," and he had a big grin.
Even when he was less verbal, you could see the gleam in his eye.
The opportunity to be part of a group,
to articulate what he's thinking,
to be treated as an equal.
While he was there, I would sit and read the paper. One day,
the art teacher came over and says, "Here we draw and we paint." I said,
"I don't know how to draw. I've never done this before." So he says,
"You see that plant over there? He's a pencil. Here's a piece of paper.
Draw it." For me, to begin to express myself,
to try things that I never had the opportunity or let myself do before
was just a wonderful outlet for the emotions that
were deeply buried within me.
The art gave me that opportunity.
When Manny passed away, we had been married fifty-eight years.
I miss my husband terribly, but the stress is gone,
and now I'm thinking, what am I going to do with myself?
Going to the Museum had become such an important part of my life.
My role as a caregiver, in many ways,
gave me the courage to go on. I thought,
"Why not do volunteer work,
here at The Met and help others?" And that's where I have found my new life.
I'm treating them the way I treated my husband,
with a lot of love and care and encouragement.
I speak with them, and I listen to them. Sometimes it's just holding their hand,
and sometimes we just sit and are silent,
but we're communicating eye to eye, smile to smile.
I framed a lot of Manny's pieces of art,
because that's what I have as a memento of him.
At the end of his life, he could do no more than maybe a line,
but it was his line. That was a fantastic achievement.
Who's to say a single line on a piece of paper is not a piece of art?
It's their humanity.
It's the creative part of the human being.
[Laughter, victorious music]