I remember taking my mum to visit my dad in the local hospice before he sadly passed away after several months of ill health and memories of the visits prompted this poem:

 

I visit you daily in your nursing home

you're physically with me yet I feel so alone

 

I reach for your hand and you pull it away

a bit of you dies with each passing day

 

Our love over years never did wane

now you look at me blankly not knowing my name

 

I sometimes think that if maybe you'd gone

I could grieve at your passing and try to move on

 

Instead you're a stranger whom I visit each day

who was once full of life but  now empty and grey.