My wife is disappearing before my eyes. Everyday I watch her change into an older, less capable, less present person. The newest loss is three spills of a water glass in 2 weeks. This loss of eye to hand coordination brings home how she is regressing in many ways into childhood. 

Today we saw a memory specialist. I went to provide the details that escape her any more. I provided but a scant number of the losses I have seen her go through in the last 9 months. Each one devastating to watch. 

Her amazing mental map turning into “I’ve never been down this street before” tho she had a hundred times.

Her loss of musical performers and lyrics when I used to refer to her as  a music aficionado.

Her statement that she’d never been introduced to our youngest son’s best friend. I literally sucked air on that one.

To complicate this,

I also seem to be allowing the soul of Jesus to do some healing work with my house of a body. While I am willing to help, his memories are more powerful than any I have experienced in my body in a long time. The last one had me trying to outrun it for weeks, literally. A simple memory of watching Mary fix dinner with the kids gathered around her. It crushed me so badly I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t drive for several hours. Was it the last time he saw them? Or a favorite memory that was so well worn the edges were all golden like a gilt edged Bible?

Whichever, the loss of this tiny domestic scene carried huge impact for me. I would assume this is partly because it correlates to my losing the woman in this life that is carrying the part of Mary for this work. Loss of this caliber of love twice, laid on top of each other, was about as much pain as I am capable of handling. It was an elephant’s foot to my chest, grinding me into the dust. Something I will be walking off for some time, trying to find a way to heal us both. And hopefully bringing some level of healing in for the world.