I am a husband and a father

I am old

My wife has dementia

I love her and support her

But that reality has become

My sole and whole role in life.

I know not what will unfold

From one day to the next

What she might be thinking

How I can interpret and understand

And respond to what she is saying

How I can ease the burden of historical hurt

That so often assails her.

How can I help her eyes to again twinkle?

To again listen to her laugh with genuine mirth?

That seems to be all gone.

Confusion reigns within her psyche her body and her soul.

I am her constant companion and go to person in a phyrric environment of constant ache.

Where to from here,

I do not know,

For each day is like confronting a maze

Of twisting, turning pathways

From which

There is no way out.