I miss you.
Silly you, happy you, interested you.
I'm learning to live with
distracted you, frightened you, silent you,
parts of you I knew from before
but different now.
Bigger.
Darker.
Even your face,
the face I love so much,
changes daily
as your body adapts
and absorbs
and rebels against
the meds.
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of you,
the you from before the diagnosis.
I live for those sometimes.
They comfort and fill me
and get me through,
until the next time.
But today I see you:
sick
sore
self-conscious
uncomfortable you,
in your
expanding
deflating
tired body.
I know
you miss you too.
We're like roommates now,
in love with the same man,
lying quietly in the dark
missing you
praying for your return
fearing you're gone forever.
For Char.
Written in 2010 for my caregiver website, "Don't Lose Heart."
Copyright 2022 ©Jean Fogelberg
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