Maybe it was the moon, that ruler of tides and water.  I didn't know I had it in me to cry for an hour and 20 minutes.  But I did.  I do.  I sat beside Richard, slumped on the side of the bed, put my arm around him and said, I know you're sad.  I'm not the most empathetic person.  I'm the person who misses the subtle signs, who doesn't shade her eyes against the sun to see the shadow.  But in those four words, I took on, at least for that hour, Richard's grief. 

When I got home, head pounding, contacts like sandpaper on my eyes, I thought, well, this is another of those times; all consuming emotional upheaval, grief like it will never end.  Pain pain pain. 

But it does end.  Nothing stays the same, extreme joy or extreme sadness.  It is the nature of the beast for time to shove you past 'that' moment, either while you try to cling to it, or try and hurry yourself away. 

Maybe one of life's most important lessons is plain endurance.  When the all consuming consumes, one has to hang a fingernnail on the remaining bit of unchanging self, that kernel of inviolate being at the center.  Like the deep waters unaffected by the sturm und drang on the surface, it's what we cling to rather than drown.

The boys, the men, are having difficulty.  After 4 months they have finally visited him.  They didn't like what they saw.  No one likes to see someone they love in pain.  They are brimming with ideas to help Richard join in activites, perhaps see a therapist, get involved in life again.  'Move forward' is the recurring phrase.  To me it seems they miss the point.    In answer I wrote:

As for Richard's sadness.  Perhaps it is time to step back and get a bit of perspective.  We have known 'this' was coming for years now while Richard has been safely cocooned in the slow but inexorable decrease of his cognitive and physical abilities.  This decline has taken place in a familiar environment with me as a constant support and companion.  Speaking for myself, I have been grieving for years as I witness and participate in this long goodbye.  From your Dad's perspective he has suddenly been moved to a strange environment. He's lost his home, his bed, his cat and me.  In other words, he is grieving.  If you've ever grieved for someone, you know it can't be hurried, papered over, postponed or avoided.  It has to be got through.  If and when you ever grieved over the loss of someone you loved, did you want to be involved in activities?   Talked out of it, jollied along, distracted? Perhaps you did but it only put off the sadness.    Sadness isn't a dirty word.  It is part of our emotional makeup and is the rightful, the only emotion, in some circumstances.

It has only been 3 weeks since he moved to Heritage, 5 weeks since he first went to hospital.  What, then, is the acceptable or correct time to move forward?

 I love him and my heart breaks seeing him sad like this.   But this is another phase of our lives together.   We've been a team through everything else.  We are a team through this.  Family love and visits are, in my opinion,  the best therapy.

He needs to know and see he is loved.