The nighttime hours, before blessed sleep overtakes you, are the worst. The house is quiet while outside the window a misty, gray haze paints a halo around the street lamp. The only things in motion are the memory wheels going round and round in my head until, at least, God grants me a restful sleep in preparation for another day — a day of dealing with whatever lies ahead when the one you love is coping with incurable physical problems. Morning comes. Some days you are pleasantly surprised to find his Alzheimer-ravaged mind seems to be temporarily cleared of the cobwebs that cloud his brain and the body invaded so cruelly by cancer comes alive for a while and he wants to talk. “About what?” I ask. He reaches out and gently tucks my usually cold hand securely in his familiar warm one, and we go to his recliner to sit a while. “That’s a good chair,” he says as we settle in. He reaches again for my hand and holds it tightly now, as if afraid it will escape his grasp and begins again, as he has for a long, long time, saying that he loves me. “Always have,” he says, “and always will.” Confusion takes over for a brief time, and he declares he can’t understand why we can’t go out to eat anymore — or even go for a drive — probably recalling from the deep recesses of his mind how we used to just pick up and go. Then it’s back to the subject of me again, as he tells me I am the best, the prettiest, apparently never noticing the timelines etched on my face. Is it any wonder I fell in love with him those long years ago? He continues to hold my hand, as he, in the blink of an eye, slips into an unwanted sleep. But he quickly awakens and, as if forgetting our previous conversation, again assures me of his everlasting love, and I quickly wipe away a tear that has managed to escape to slide gently down my check. In a strange way it is an intimate moment of togetherness as he swears he would do anything for me, help me in any way he could, because he really loves me. The oxygen machine now whirrs in the background where once there was a TV blaring. The clear tubing that connects him to that machine snakes its way silently across the carpeted floor and he breathes easier — more comfortably. He wonders every day, perhaps even every hour, in the blackness of his stricken mind, why he can’t even take a walk in the yard anymore, and how do I explain to him again about the despicable thing that has invaded his lung• How can I dash his hope, unrealistic as it is, that his energetic walking days are all in the past? He is but a shadow, a beloved shadow of his former self, but as I continue to hold his hand in mine, my heart tells me he is still my love — the tall, strong, kind and generous person he has always been. How many more opportunities will there be when we can sit side by side, holding each other — and remembering• What comes next is not to be feared, if you have placed your faith in the Son of God, explaining that some day we will join him in heaven, should he go first. When that thought penetrated his mind, he raised his thin arm and exclaimed triumphantly, “Praise the Lord, now I feel better!” In my reading I found a prayer. I don’t think the author will mind if I repeat it here, because it has helped me and I’m sure he is aware that there are many living under a shadow — a time when faith grows weak. “When the pain is so great that you cannot find the words to say a prayer … When your heart is so heavy that you cannot move your lips to ask … When you think you don’t have a prayer … God hears you.”

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