Despair

Despair is a kind of fire in the skin, that pink sheath stretched over the cheekbones, the red-rim at eye’s edge.

Last night my husband, refusing my help, the wheelchair, my protective pleas. I could see him wobbly and working too hard to get out of his recliner. His voice angry as a fox, cornered, that yapping, raspy bark.

Do you know what it’s like to know what is going to happen?

You don’t need to be psychic. Some knowing is pure bone, the marrow part fat, part wisdom.

Going down, his head battered glass that held (thank you, universe) before hitting the wooden frame, the metal track of the sliding door.

The fall was fast, and yet, to witness it, a slow-motion rupture in time and sanity. Helpless is an insufficient word.

Who is more foolish? He who chooses ego over care, or she who thinks she can save anyone?

I won’t tell you now crazy-hard it was to get him up and into bed, only that you keep finding a way, and giving up is not an option, literally.

After tending to the bloody patch opened on his forehead, leaving him to sleep, I went out into the garden room, the cats following, before I closed the door. They watched me sobbing, deep and huffing. Oddly, they were purring. Thank you, thank you, my mind whispered.

When I saw bits of blood on my fingertips, I honesty didn’t know if it was his or mine, or who’s pain I was grieving.