What. Who. Where

"What is he seeing as he sits and stares so long at a time?
What is he thinking when he wakes up in the middle of the night and sits on the side of the bed hour after hour just whispering to himself?
Who is he seeing when he says 'boys and girls are all in the room'?
Could it be that his mind is going back to when our children were small and needed Mama and Daddy so badly?
Who does he mean when he stands and waits so long for the other Mildred to come?
Is he maybe remembering when she was young and they were doing so much together... so busy raising their seven children... and he was working six nights a week to provide while this younger Mildred was keeping the home?
Where is home?
When he walks the floor all evening begging someone to please take him home...
no this isn't home.
Maybe he's remembering his childhood home... working on the farm with his Dad and Mama and brothers and sisters.
I've often wondered as these Earthly ties so slowly turn him loose.
Maybe the mind somehow realizes this isn't long my home.
Somewhere out there, there must be a place where this mixed-up mind will again be at peace.
But oh God I won't ask why. I know you are still in control and I thank you for our 65 years together..."

- my grandma Mildred wrote this in a letter to me last week. It's about my grandpa who is suffering badly from the effects of dementia. The above picture is from a WW II history book. My grandpa was a mule-skinner with the Texas National Guard and was sent to Burma to fight in the jungle. Many did not come back.