I Lose Him More Every Day

     I'm held together by purpose but not reason,
for there is nothing sane about what I am doing.
It is the sleep of reason in the name of the love
I have for the person I have as my charge.
      I am haunted by a living man,
A person truly aware of what he has lost
and what he is losing. He started his life
at a deficit, and yet he keeps finding unique
ways to ground himself, to find a way through
the fog.
      I am proud of him in ways I can never
communicate to him. Perhaps that is something
I should have shared with him long ago.
When he could hear me.
When he could understand what I say.
      But we are past that aren't we. He doesn't
understand words anymore. Not really.
      Not most weeks.
      Instead we use the sign language that he
put together with his mother, along with
some new tricks he has inexplicably found along
the way.
      His mom haunts me. She was my charge
before he was. For a while they both were. But
she has long passed on, and now it is just him and
me. There are others of course, but in his view there
is only one person that matters.
      It has always been the way with him.
      First his mother and now me.
      Today I dropped him off at one of my
family members homes so that I could have some
days to rest. He tried to get me to take off my coat.
He tried to get me to stay. But I know I can't,
just as much as I know he can't.
      He is dying a little bit every day, and I never
know if he will be the same person the next time I
see him. I used to dread seeing my uncle when I was
a kid, yet now I worry about him constantly.
      I try to make peace, and I try to take some time to rest.
But I have the image of him trying to get me to stay burned
into my brain. I will never forget the look in his eyes.
      No matter what I do, no matter how I choose to
move on, I know that he feels abandoned by me
every time I say goodbye.
      He doesn't know that I will see him in a few days,
that by hell or high water I will never let him
feel like no one is there for him.
      When he passes I will cry for him.
But I hope he will never see reason to cry
for as long as he has left to live.
      He will die long before his body does.
He does so every day.
      Who will I be greeting next week?