Sunday, May 4, 2008

Wash Day

My mind is awash in a sea of memory, in the vast, endless ocean that engulfed me last year at this time. There’s such clarity of vision and sensation in the replay… washing John, changing catheters and dressings, giving him sips of water, soothing his brow, holding his hand, murmuring to him about the great joy he’d brought to my life, about the wisdom I felt fortunate to have learned from him, about the beauty he’d graced me with. Ultimately I'm watching a replay of the harshness that comes in witnessing a brilliant mind obliterated by the agony of a slow death. I would curl up beside him and just hold him, let him know as much as I could, even as he slept, that he wasn’t alone. The ironic juxtaposition of me being an anchor, even while I felt so adrift, isn’t lost on me.

And here I am, wishing for the same. Wanting only to be held through an agony that there is no cure for, and against which there is no guard.

3 comments:

  1. I know how you feel, I am the anchor, the rock, solid and reliable yet sometimes adrift.

    *** Hugs from the other side of the planet (well just about) ***

    ReplyDelete
  2. With all due respect, Gordon, you don't have a clue how I feel. Not to be rude, but to define; you really don't know me.

    I appreciate the hug, but I get fractious when those who know me (let alone someone I've never even met) claim to have a handle on what's inside my head.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ((((((((((((HUG))))))))))))

    I LOVE YOU SISTER OF MINE!!

    ReplyDelete

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