In Eternal Gratitude
My parents-in-law were old school : he the quietly self-sufficient Pennsylvania German, she the prim southern lady. Neither was given to expressing their feelings, nor displaying affection; other than that, they had little in common — yet somehow they worked together. We would have had no idea how deeply he cared for her if it weren’t for the several times she was hospitalized with life-threatening illnesses, but he still said little.

When he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and dementia, she managed his care with a perhaps unprecedented level of fierce dedication. When we saw them for Thanksgiving two years ago, it was the last time he was at all mobile or coherent; a couple months later, he was a shell of a human. When she entered the hospital that spring, he was speechless and wheelchair bound, recognizing no one for several months; his eyes were hollow but they literally turned black — on some level he knew, and perhaps more than the rest of us. And when we told him she’d passed, he simply laid down and was done.

This may seem a sad story, but it is not: rather, it’s how two ordinary, imperfect people came together to form a perfect love that lasted many decades. I am eternally grateful for them.
['Sherry Kappel']
['Love', 'Gratitude', 'Poetry', 'One Line Poetry Prompt']