I enjoy writing verse. In fact, poetic verse is how When It Raynes was first formed. A friend of mine suggested I share a piece I wrote when my grandfather was admitted into the VA home due to his losing battle with Alzheimer's. Thus this piece is pretty raw as to the feelings I was having. I never blamed my family for having to take this step but each time I think of him it breaks my heart.


There is a Man

There is a man slumped in a chair
His body worn and withered
With a mind stripped of its memories
Raped by a horrid disease
Memories of a life lived to its fullest
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

His shoulders hunched forward
With head bowed toward his lap
A weakened body loss of its strength
A body once known to stand unarmed
As a barrier between a drunken man
And a family he sought to protect
A misfired gun aimed to his chest when trigger squeezed
Hands strong enough to claim possession of the rifle
Yet gentle enough to carry a granddaughter to safety
Held in a comforting embrace with knuckles swollen and raw
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

Feeble hands lost of coordination
Fumbling inaptly at a button of his shirt
Those fingers once the teacher
Of lessons learned by a granddaughter on a fishing boat
Her green eyes shining brightly at the man she loved most
Careful instruction of a proper knotted hook
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

His clothes hung loose
Thinned from the appetite that has escaped him
Seams of his shirt hanging well below the drawn shoulders
Shoulders that once carried a freckle-faced granddaughter
Dressed in his hunter’s orange
Swallowing her small stature
With seams hanging well off her shoulders
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

He stares at an object in his hands
Rectangular black with buttons of grey
He studies it without recollection of its purpose
A fifth grade formal education but a self-taught business man
He learned a computer’s instant messaging in his seventies
An aide communicate with a granddaughter taken away to school
The cursor flashes of his type the best part of her day
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

There is a man who stands unsteady on his feet
Balance fleeting from his stance
Unable to walk simple steps without risk of fall
He once rode a motorcycle of eight hundred pounds
Maneuvering curves of country roads
Running alongside the banks of Moon Lake
A granddaughter of mid-twenties holding tightly to his waist
She his only passenger in the history of his bike
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

He stares blankly at the woman who stands before him
His expression void of any recognition
The age of his disease sparing the brilliant blue of his eyes
He once held her in those swirls of cobalt
Sitting across from her as she wept tears of a love losing its battle
He had not before been exposed to the love two women could share
Yet he tenderly gave words of encouragement
His voice cracking with the emotion he tried to hold in
Finally breaking as his tears fell along with hers
He doesn’t remember… but I do.

His thoughts absent of the man he is
His memories void of the lessons he taught
His heart no longer bursting with the love he shared
His life, his strength, his lessons, his love –
They will live in me
They will be my memories
They will be shared with whom I give my strength, my lessons, my love, my life
He doesn’t remember… but I will.


Cd Cain, 2014