"Caregiver Unmasked" a poem

“Caregiver Unmasked”
(a poem– Dedicated with love to Ema and *Rachel)

Rachel is a friend whose husband also suffers a TBI
How I weep for you, heart of my heart,

for you have been stolen away from me

and I am left with only a husk that bears

passing resemblance to the one I married.

With a terrible screech of tire and shattering

of clear glass, my-happily-ever-after fantasy

crashed head-on into the exhausting reality

of being your crutch, your nurse, your keeper

rather than your lover, your mate, your equal.

Days and nights I fight my fight as you sleep

the sleep of the unknowing. I groan, I grieve,

I sob wordless pleas and grunt raw prayers.

My tongue is now overgrown with callouses

from biting back bitter retorts to many callous

remarks made not by you, but by the Injury.

My heart drains daily like a never-healing

wound that I bind up with words worn thin

“For better, for worse; in sickness and health”

If I pour enough salty tears on you in the night

as I lay still, listening for– and dreading–your

next breath, will they bring you back, my heart?

When death–who did not have you before–

speaks through your lips, “I should have died.”

Peace-lover by nature, I rouse to war for your

life. I fight demons, doubts, dark depression

and despair. I fight, I fight, I fight. I fight for faith.

I fight fiercely for family. I fight for focus. I fight

to remember Who walks this valley with us,

and Who has promised a Heaven with every

tear personally wiped away. And Health.

And Hope personified. And I bathe my face

in the kind words of my friends and I pick

up pompoms to cheer your next unaided step.

–Linda S. Johnson

September 10, 2007

Repudiating Darkness