“Where’s your wife?”

The grocery clerks, the drug store help, coffee shop baristas, deli servers, librarians, they all ask the same question. When I return now, alone, to the places we frequented together, they all expect to see the blind guy and his ever cheerful wife. 

But she’s not there, so they ask,

“Where’s your wife?”

And I try to answer, tear up, reach out to hold her hand that isn’t there, start crying, because I’m asking the same question,

Where’s my wife?

tio stib

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Tennyson wrote
“tis better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all”

I have loved and lost

left tearfully treading water
in an infinite ocean of loneliness

tio stib

You might also appreciate: Both Sides; My Dementia Diary

Sorting through her things, my fingers find a shape I know.

a paper heart

A message from a far off place

I love you!

and there are more

she has left me a trail of hearts

with each new discovery
I hold her close
press her memory to my chest

and cry

because paper hearts are not enough

tio stib

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