Parents,
siblings, friends and pets
provide support in many ways,
yet they come to need us more in their waning days.
Perhaps
you’ve had a loved one who
persisted past their prime?
Ponder the comfort we should cheerfully offer
as they encounter their decline.
They grow
frail and more frequently
falter.
Imperfections magnify.
In our health and relative vigor,
We endeavor to grant their modest wishes,
And meet their burgeoning needs.
Novel
obligations emerge and expand.
They grow weary, as do we.
Optimism fades.
Pleasures are blunted.
Memory becomes distorted, fragmented, stunted.
News
arriving from distant places,
photos of once-familiar faces
posted with intent to cheer,
instead foster frustrations that simmer and swell
when recognition fails
in those we hold near.
Autonomy and authority are shifted, and eventually relinquished.
Competencies evaporate.
Caregiver commitments multiply.
Some fight
the hopeless battles
depleting reserves as resilience recedes.
Others relent, concede defeat.
Some are unaware.
Crises
converge, coalesce and
compound.
Options are evaluated, when
Medicine cannot restore nor rescue.
Encouragement is insufficient.
Happy endings are difficult to envision as complications
intensify.
Farewells
are formulated. Promises
are made.
Directives should be discussed.
Silent resentments and regrets may arise as
These loved ones linger and languish.
Preferences
are stated.
Arrangements anticipated.
Legacies contemplated.
Family and friends speculate the aftermath.
Consciousness
flutters, then
departs.
Breath becomes uneven and unreliable,
Until all that remains are aching and exhausted hearts
In the living and the newly expired.
When, at
last, one age has ended,
there may be brief relief,
but Grief comes quickly to flood that space,
to be gradually displaced by Gratitude
upon consolation, fond recollection and further contemplation.
G.R. Davis Jr
17 October 2023
Prompted by the passing of Joseph
Palmisano, Tia Palmisano-Davis,
George Davis, Hazel Davis, Anne Richbourg, Jack Seitz, David
Whisnant and pets
Ginger and Mr. Cooper.