thief
Dementia came like a thief.
Not through the window,
not beneath the cover of darkness,
but quietly,
in broad daylight,
while we were all watching.
At first, it stole small things.
Where you had left your glasses.
Why you had walked into the room.
The name of the woman from next door.
Things we could laugh about then.
We did not know
the thief had already found the door.
It grew bolder.
It took dates,
then places,
then stories you had carried
for half a lifetime.
It emptied drawers inside your mind
and left them open.
It took the recipe
your hands had made a thousand times.
The road home.
The year.
The names of people you loved.
Then one day
it took mine.
I stood before you
wearing a face you had once known
better than your own,
and watched you search it
for something familiar.
Nothing came.
I smiled anyway.
I told you who I was.
And somewhere inside me
something broke
without making a sound.
The thief was cruel like that.
It did not take you all at once.
It let us keep finding you
and losing you again.
A laugh would escape
that was completely yours.
A phrase.
A glance.
The old mischief in your eyes
would flicker for a moment,
and there you were.
There you were.
Then gone again.
So we learned not to ask
if you remembered.
We remembered for you.
We carried the names,
the birthdays,
the holidays,
the stories you once told us.
We became the keepers
of the life the thief was taking.
And still it came.
Room by room.
Memory by memory.
Piece by piece.
Until your body remained before us,
your familiar hands resting in mine,
the same bones beneath the same skin,
but so much of the person
who had filled them
had been stolen away.
Perhaps that was the cruellest part.
The thief left the bones behind.
Left us somewhere to place our arms.
Left a cheek to kiss,
a hand to hold,
a face we had loved for years.
And even when you no longer knew
whose hand was holding yours,
I held it.
Because I knew.
And until the very end,
I remembered enough
for both of us.