As is my practice, I always meet the families. As much as they will let me in, I become part of this time of their life. And so, she came in. We talked briefly and she admitted today was particularly painful. "To tell you the truth, I don't want to see him. Is it horrible, for me to feel this way?", she asked pleadingly.
And so, this dutiful wife walked out of my office and saw her husband sitting in the Living Room. There was that split-second delay on his part, as if looking through a fog and spotting someone familiar. Without seeing her face, I knew the pain that hesitation caused, and she knew where it came from.
They held hands. And then, she walked with him as he got up and left. She followed him. She followed him. And as he went in and out of his disease, she became alternately, wife and then, stranger.
And so, the words came to me.
Fear not for me
black and white stills,
8 millimeter,
color polaroids,
video,
digital.
images of then.
cobwebs shimmering and glossy, yet true;
blocks of time or precious moments
are anchors to the otherwise gossamer reality of my now.
This parallel universe haunts,
confuses and diffuses
and even excuses me.
for me, one moment is here and now
the next who knows where.
You follow, or so you think ,
the wispy, milky, silky strands
of polysyllabic nonsense that betray me
Be not pained for me.
Acceptance came gratefully included.
In my two worlds you exist–
I whirl you around –so beautiful in your wedding dress.
I wipe your brow as you breathlessly encourage our child into life.
Sliding, gliding I inhabit then and now
not at my whim, but swept acceptingly about.
Like the gentle slide of a whirlpool
with its inevitability of no-refund and no-return.
Know that I slowly leave, though in body I remain.
Be not pained for me. I am here and I’ve already left.
I am a memory in a physical presence.
Adieu.
© paul pineda
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