Wednesday, January 13, 2016 When we were WE..

This is the poem I wrote some time in 2011..obviously I was having a kind of sad day ...I put it in my blog in 2012 here it is 2016...He is no longer here, it is his Birthday today

Today, January 13...he would have been 86 years old..so when Mac died he was a good age..well past the 3 score and 10 a kind measurement of a good age.

This poem written when I was trying to understand the ins and outs or the on's and off's of Alzheimer's Disease, illustrates how I felt..I kind of wish I could go through this day again, because then I would be with him, but that would be a rather selfish wish. So I read the poem and think
Happy Birthday Mac, we were WE, right to the end.

MEMORY LOSS
He is there inside
I hear his voice
It is his mouth
These are his words

It is his body
But is he there

He knows I’m me
And I know it IS he

We laugh, we sing, but
It is not really WE.

I am there inside
He hears my voice
It is my mouth
These are my words

It is my body
And I am there
But does he know it’s me

We cuddle we love
But we’re not really WE

it was his mouth it was my mouth,
it was his body it was my body
We laughed, we cuddled, we sang, we loved
When he was he and I was me.
And WE were WE

This is the last paragraph of that day.....
"Don't be too sad when you read this as I am up and down and that was a down day...we are we but we are WE in a new kind of life. Today was a good day, we babysat..our love, Finley. "

Now I only have the memories and of course I look back with rose colored glasses, in fact today I was at the Eye Specialist, and I'm actually typing this with blurred eyes.one because of the freezing drops in them, and the other because of tears...but good tears, happy tears because he no longer hss to figure out who is who..

Now my memories go back to the days when he and I celebrated his birthdays in so many fun ways...with the family, or just the two of us, with the grandchildren, always sharing his special cake - his fave was Boston Cream Pie, really a layer cake with custard in the middle and chocolate on top...

We would also go out to various activities that happened at the time of his birthday..here is an excerpt from my journal of 1993 - at that time I was working and Mac would have been

"bought a card for Mac, normally we don't buy each other a card, just gifts..but couldn't resist, the picture on it is perfect trilliums..he loves them..and he loved the card.didn't like the waitresses singing Happy Birthday at Il Vicino, but he put up with it...actually smiled, ha.Right now it's blowing snowing and freezing, I'm in a nice warm bed with a nice warm husband, whoopee"

Well that was 1993, he was 63, we had many many birthdays like that..so I'm not a basket case today, maybe because a good friend of the family died last week, he was only 50 years old..so I'm grateful for the lovely life we had together hmmm I do have teary eyes so...g'nite.