A poem I wrote watching my wife of 45 years take a year to die. |
Her Eyes To look into her eyes Where Joy had made a home and lived, Where love and happiness had thrived, Where forty years of life Were shared and made complete. Where children came and added to the joy, Where love healed all the hurts, And all the happiness and pain Were shared. The pain made less, The joy expanded to the stars. For all those years. To look into her eyes, To see the love and wonder, To share a common soul, To share a beat, our hearts in sync, To plan for when we'd finally be alone With all the children grown. To be just us, one soul again. Then to have that ripped away To watch the beast dementia eat her mind, Eat all those memories, Eat all those years, Eat her heart and body, Eat her life and soul. A shortness of breath, Of drowning in air. To see her struggle to be alive, Then fail and be consumed by misery again. To see the torture that's her life now, Gasping and struggling for what life needs. And now to look into those same eyes And see the changes that it's caused, To see the bleak scene that she's become, All the confusion, All the pain, All the sorrow Watching fear raise it's ugly head. Fear lives in her eyes now. |