My deepest condolences on your loss. Such people are rare to encounter in our lives, and can imagine how devastating it can be as you remember the man he was before his illnesses began robbing him of his abilities.
I remember watching my dad lose his abilities, also in large part due to side effects from the many medications they had him on over the decades.
When he passed (also due to medical neglect) it was a catch 22. He was so unhappy for many years as he recognized what he was losing, saying things like
back when I was human
back when I was a man
and much worse.
It was a mix of my sadness of loss, due to the dynamic man he had been before the medications transformed him into a shell of the man he once was. A great man who had a brilliant mind and the ability to learn and do whatever needed doing from mechanical to carpentry to gunsmithing to whatever.
Juxtaposed by the unhappy, often in pain both physical and mental that had imprisoned him for so many decades. Watching him year after year putting on a brave front as he tried to hide both the immense physical pain he was in, as it slowly ate at him. Coupled with the growing loss of his mental acuities and worse, his will as a strong man it left me with a strange feeling of relief for him that his pain and erosion of spirit were finally over.
I'm hopeful that such a sense is there for you in relief to help temper some small bit the loss that from your sharing began many years earlier as it had with my dad.
Thank you for sharing your thankfulness for him, and the way your bonds with him grew over time. This is what true love is, not the lustful so called romantic love that is bandied about so much in public. It's humbling to read of such a real bond between two, and I'm grateful that you had such a relationship in your life. So many don't, or for whatever reason circumstances of life act as a rock breaking the glue of such a tie.
Please take your time in coming to terms with the loss. We all handle such experience differently, and we are here to listen if you need to talk more of this and revive the powerful energy stored in you from your history with him. Or if you need more time away, we will leave the lights on for you upon your return.
Thanks old friend! There is a sense of relief, for the past couple of years Lindy would confide in me that he was ready to go, that life had become a burden not worth the effort. He had made his peace and was ready for whatever it is that comes next. Now there's the question of what comes next for me -- it looks like I may reunite with my exwife who's invited me to move in with her when I leave here. The family wants me to stay for at least six months while all of the legalities are dealt with -- an unglorified security guard.