Energy Savings

Each day starts as the day before.

Will I die today?

The answer as always the same.

No.

As I start the day to feed, bathe, and dress him, my own pain creeps up the scale.

I look at his paleness and note the wasting muscles and see him whither more each day.

Confusion ever growing and hallucinations to match.

I'm told that I can't keep him home and for a nursing home he's bound.

I made a promise and a vow; in sickness and in health.

I must say a prayer of thanks for the pain and exhaustion I feel.

It is the pain that keeps me home so I can care for him.

A daily ritual has begun at five o'clock each day.

The imaginary people come to visit and sit upon our couch.

He talks for hours before he tires and wishes them to go.

So he raises his voice to let them know that he hallucinates.

Slowly he rises; his legs so weak and he says that he is glad that they are gone.

His memory of the home we have fades a little every day.

He can't remember where we sleep and must ask to find the bathroom.

For fifteen years he has walked this hall but that he has forgot.

I have to wonder what he sees in walls that have not moved and doors that have not changed.

I love him so and he loves me when his memory points me out.

I answer to so many names so not to confuse him more.

Just find the flow and ride; his smile will carry us on journeys here and far away.

We never have to leave the house.  Think how much energy that we save.