When Love Is Not Enough

Synopsis:

I recently learned that Judge Sandra Day O’Connor’s husband had dementia and no longer recognized her. Additionally, he had formed a relationship with another woman at his memory care facility. Their story struck a chord with me and became the genesis of When Love Is Not Enough, a very personal play that takes it a step further, where the husband forms a relationship with a man, leaving his wife to deal with being unrecognized, infidelity and questioning his sexuality.

When Love Is Not Enough follows the lives of two married couples -- (straight) Elle and Patrick and (gay) Corey and Noah. Patrick and Noah have dementia and are at the same Memory Care facility. During their stay, Patrick and Noah form a sexual relationship even though Patrick is straight. Both no longer recognize their spouses. The novel explores the impact on Elle and Corey as they confront the impact of Alzheimer’s on their marriages; the way their roles have changed. Elle and Corey are forced to form a bond with each other—as a coping mechanism. Elle ponders whether her husband has been a closeted gay man during their marriage. Corey and Noah’s adopted son is missing in Afghanistan, making Corey deal with another potential loss in his life without the support of his husband, Noah. Music is used as a backdrop because the auditory system of the brain is fully functional at 16 weeks. We appreciate and understand music before anything else. With dementia, music is the last brain function to die. In other words, first in and last out.

My own mother died of dementia in 2017, and in When Love Is Not Enough, I’ve used the trajectory of her illness, how it was diagnosed, its progressions and how it impacted her loved ones.