An exercise in reduction

Many days, H struggles to follow a TV show or a daily conversation. He will ask about the same thing over and over again with escalating anxiety about the topic. He offers only the same 4 or 5 topics for conversation and he stares into space for 10 minutes at a time. Most days, he sleeps most of the time.

Fewer and fewer days now, he can be articulate, funny, and charming...just a glipse.

I miss him, "like the deserts miss the rain." I so want for him to be there more than he is, but he is declining and there is less and less of him left.

While some deaths are sudden, I'm watching the process of H's life leaving him and him leaving us. I've written prior about our life together shrinking and he is falling behind more and more as I move forward just living my (rather dull) life.

For his sake and mine a big part of me will stay behind with him just to be with him, just to love him. He will be better for it.

And when I don't need anything from him anymore, I can just be with him. I will be able to forgive him for whatever it was whenever it happened or didn't and just love him unconditionally.

As he slips away and our life together recedes, all that is left is the love between us. And the way to the depth of that love is through forgiveness.