Transition

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The light dims
bit by bit,
in his mind.

You can see it
as he squints
to understand,
and then doesn't.

It gets harder to see
the forest for the trees,
so he turns away, from this,
his befuddlement.

And in the dimming
of the the present, he looks back
to days much brighter,
when his walk was swift
and times were gay,
or hard, or sweet,
or terrible.

Of these things he is certain,
so again and again he replays them,
and sometimes,
he seems less certain,
and something small
has changed.

Repetition is his solace,
and his last hold on reason,
and authority,
yet it too, slowly,
slips a bit.

I am not sad to watch this,
I know it is his final season.
And what dims here
in this world,
will brighten anew, I believe,
in another.

Transition is hard, but as they go
this one is softer, gentler than most.
No pain but the stab of anger, from frustration,
and grief,
and the loss,
of a man
he remembers being.

We laugh...
whenever we can.

He tells his tales
over again to me,
and I make note of who,
and what and where and when,
and let go of details
when it all gets too fogged in,
again.

And I smile and nod
with all the patience
I never knew
I could muster.

I go with him,
part of the way,
to where he needs to be,
and I don't try to understand,
not completely.

It is not for me he performs
these stories, it is for him.
And my place is as witness,
to the decline and fall of
the Father Empire.

I do not jump ahead,
I stay right here and wait.
The time for sorrow will come,
and soon enough...
soon enough
shall grief be mine.

And it will be my story then,
to tell my children one day,
in the reliving of my glory days...
and his.

During my youth love will be my teacher;
In middle age, my help and in old age, my delight.
- Kahlil Gibran

Age is not a handicap. Age is nothing but a number. It is how you use it. - Ethel Payne

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