It doesn't matter...

My Ex has had a type of dementia for a decade. Sometimes he is better than others and some days he isn't. Today was an isn’t. On the good days, he could always remember the past. For years when I would leave, he would come to the door of the unit, I'd unlock it, he would hold it open and wave, knowing he was not supposed to go further.

In spite of this afternoon being an isn't day, I drove back from his complex after a lovely visit of two people caring for each other. I felt it. I have been away in Tucson for the winter, it didn't matter. It didn't matter if I hadn't seen him for a while, it didn't matter if he could remember where he was, or who I might be. And I had no interest in asking.

When I arrived his eyes had just come from sleep and there is -- what to say -- a slightly absent look about them almost as if they are out of focus. It didn't matter that we divorced twenty-five years ago after being joined at the proverbial hip for thirty-four, plus the two years of seeing life differently. No, none of this mattered this afternoon, none of it.

Driving back from the complex he has been in for a few years, I thought, “Oh my land, you do not need head-memory to remember, to feel, to be moved, to laugh, to catch the joke, to find a situation funny, to be wise” And he was always wise in his way. We shared all those things today. He has memory, he can feel someone's love, someone's laugh, and that we did. I told him stories of people he had known well but does not remember, not today at least. However, I knew when he hit meaning, he was moved. The soul heard. I put the ginger snap cookie under his nose for a smell, enticing him to tea, down the hall to the dining room. It didn’t take much. He knew it was a bit funny and he laughed. His eyes twinkled when we caught that look of understanding and care we always had.

I asked him if he wanted to take a little walk around the perimeter of his unit. Indeed, he did. Walking, as we had done countless times, I thought, "We are like two old shoes." We were experiencing that feeling between us, we recognized each other -- all those years and all that love, we had built our own energy body together. Doesn't matter if he has a wife or children he loves dearly as he also has built a unique soul body with them that does not need a mind to be clear crystal or anywhere near it. He merely does not have head-memory, today.

Yet, the heart remembers well, his spirit-self, his soul-self recognizes and responds. No need of mind-memory today as a million, zillion moments of coming together as one big feeling of truth, that needs no words, was lapping each of us like gentle ocean waves.

I was so excited by the time I got home I wanted to tell everyone, you don't need memory to remember, as we are so full of feeling without it, so full of freedom, of joy. All this he gave me today, all this was wrapped in a ginger snap. And if someone asks how was the visit, I’d have to say “Just great.”


*I am now getting ready to go back to Tucson for the winter for a new season. Yesterday, he left his body, turned on his side as if he was sleeping. So he too welcomes a new season as well. I am sure.