Empty chairs and empty tables....

September 12, 2012 The long dark tunnel, echoes of light and forgotten days. Moments of exquisite pain, the empty togetherness of nobody home. It is much lonelier to be with someone who isn't there, than to be by yourself. I can hear my heart beats. I can watch my thoughts form and tumble out of my head and spill all over my face. I yearn for my loved ones. I am alone. September 25, 2012 What a simple learning. When I am with another adult, I feel so much better and am so much kinder to him. Is it because I yearn for adult, unimpaired company? Alone is isolating. I don't know. I do know that I was at my wit's end and my sister's visit saved my bacon. He was still crazy and lost, but somehow, in her company, I was concerned for him and helpful. Why oh why can't I do that on my own? Again, I don't know, but I can use this knowledge to help us both. September 28, 2012 Jigsaw puzzles. Life is all about finding the edges and putting patterns together to create understanding. October 7, 2012 If my grief moves through me like the tides, with reasons and rhythms of its own, then despair cycles through me with the rising and settling of the sun. Each and every day, as the day ages and shadows grow longer, my keening gets louder. It is only in my mind so far, but I fear I shall soon be shrieking out loud. There is such a resolute, singleminded aloneness in darkness. The only thing that has made life here, alone with him, bearable is the sunshine. Have you ever danced on the head of a pin? Watched a single droplet of water sizzle on a hot pan? October 11, 2012 Remember all that lamenting about the slowness of this loss? The changes that moved like glaciers, steadily, inexorably, creeping over eons down into the cesspool of dementia? That carved out of the landscape of personality, the characteristics that used to be there? Leaving great lakes of confusion and agitation? Suddenly that great ice floe of horror has been sliding fast, very fast, and it scares me to death. October 12, 2012 Me: I am so sorry I am not kinder to you. I am so sorry I get so frustrated and upset. Him: I think you do great. There has got to be a way to find our way home. I wish I could be a better person and get more done. I have to get home. I know that. October 27, 2012 Gethsemane: "I think I'll just kill myself," he said after not being able to express himself. "Oh?" I responded, "how are you going to do that?" "I dont know," he admitted. "But I feel like that would be best." Yesterday he forgot how to tie his shoes. That sounds like, "yesterday, I went to the store." Such a small thing. But such a huge thing. This morning I found him naked in his bed, his PJs in a puddle of pee on the floor with his diaper and a trail of urine leading into the bathroom. It doesn't require a Sherlock's help to write the back story. His Parkinsonian palsy is worse too. This man, who used to leave me scrambling like a puppy to keep up in our long walks, his 6 foot frame and longs legs making a mockery of my efforts to walk alongside of him, now shuffles aimlessly along, the distance behind me growing greater with each step.