The day I saw the light leave your eyes

The day I saw the light leave your eyes, something snapped within me. Something elemental and numbing. As if my environment flattened to black and white.

I still feel a kind of awe when clouds on the horizon shine like fire and gold. But this world holds little wonder anymore.

I remember our life from before when I hear the song of the lark rising in the sky.

Or if I see a doe and her fawns nibbling in our garden before the sun begins to crest the horizon.

But I'm not the same anymore, as if a part of me was lost in that moment, suddenly realizing I no longer have a soul. How can I find peace or rest in this life without it? How can I ever find it without you?

God knows I continue to love you even when you stare unseeing and unknowing back at me. I try to hold your hand, but it hangs limply in mine till you pull it sullenly away.

The day I saw the light leave your eyes did you stop being my Rose? I called your name again and again, but you only starred dully back. Where did the lamp that had always shone within your gaze go to hide?

Did it flee and take my soul with it to alien and distant lands and leave your uncomprehending body behind?

I remember your jolly laugh on the really bad days, the memory of your grin lighting up my heart as nothing else ever has. But your body stopped laughing and your mouth long ago forgot how to smile.

It did not happen all at once. “Early onset Alzheimer's” the doctor said in a clinical voice, like a sentence worse than death. "Does God hate me?" you whispered in my ear.

While the doctor gave you some tests in the office, a nurse carried a bunch of brochures into the waiting room and sat down to discuss treatment strategies as I gazed numbly back. Finally, I stood up and mumbled, "My tears need a minute to find the edges of my face. If you'll please excuse me."

I drove you home, my face and yours wet from weeping. The following few years were hard. But I wish daily that we could still talk and tenderly touch one another as we did often then, even in the midst of our terrible grief.

But you grew increasingly frustrated and angry at the creature eating away at your life until one day none of you was left behind.

The day I saw the light leave your eyes, I took you softly in my arms and whispered in your ear, "I'm still here, Rose. I'll never leave you."

But in my secret thoughts I begged you to return. I pleaded with God to give you back to me. That night in our bed, I wept till the dawn began to slip beneath the shades in our room and a little wren just outside our window cheerfully welcomed a new day.

But you did not leave me. Not really. Alzheimer's took you from me, like a cruel celestial prank. How does one vanquish such a predator when not even a lifetime of love and devotion can resist it?

On the really bad days I imagine putting you in twenty-four seven care. I know you could not tell the difference anyway. But I would.

For better or worse we each promised at the altar. Did we mean it? We were so young and so naive. But we're no longer young, my love.

And what little naiveite remained was lost the day I saw the light leave your eyes.