by NICOLE SANTA CRUZ
Senior citizens reflect on suicides and murder-suicides involving elderly victims in Orange County.
Comardo, 86, understands the emotional toll of caring for a spouse in failing health. Over a period of six years, she watched her husband’s personality change from fun-loving to angry and confused. They had to stop dancing — their favorite social activity — because he would become jealous. Then, he started to wander away from home.
After Comardo placed him in a nursing home, she visited every day, even though he didn’t recognize her. Sometimes he wouldn’t even look at her. Over time, she started to resent him.
“His whole personality changed,” she said. “He wasn’t my husband anymore.”
Her husband’s mental decline is why she can grasp what might drive an elderly spouse to shoot a partner or push people to suicide. Though her husband suffered from Alzheimer’s, Comardo always blamed him. She said she mourned his death through hatred.
“Who knows if I had a gun if I would have shot him or shot myself,” she said.
To those outside the elderly community, recent events present a grim glimpse into aging: A 77-year-old man fatally shot his wife of nearly 50 years Dec. 6 in the bathroom of their Laguna Woods home, then turned the gun on himself. An 84-year-old man leaped to his death from a nearby 14-story tower five days later.
Los Angeles Times for more
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