Today we took the trash out, and she didn't forget the way back to the door. Today she had a good day. Some mornings, as we sip our tea from the cups she bought me for my wedding, she is with me. But other mornings I know she is just trying to untangle the strings that got caught in her mind to remember who I am. We try to go through photo albums but eventually the confusion exhausts her so I give her her medication and let her rest. It is rarely uninterrupted. Because she hears someone in the house and I patiently check every room and closet. My heart breaks on the days she asks about my father for whom she's survived without ten years. But her illness tells her he left for another woman. It's those days I am almost thankful, that tomorrow she won't remember today. Almost. Tomorrow when we sit down to drink our tea, she will tell me in great detail how no one has visited her in weeks. I've learned to nod my head in sympathy and only sometimes do I have to excuse myself to go to the restroom where I welcome the tears that flow like the waves of the ocean. One day I had a mother she loved baking and sewing dresses. Then one night she tried to stir a boiling pot of water with her hand. One night she began petting a pillow and told me I needed to feed my dog. Overnight it seemed, I have already lost her though she continues to live. Some call that a blessing. I don't. The true blessings are the mornings she doesn't wake up afraid in her own home. They are the days she calls me by my name. And I can see love in her eyes Even if it's just for a moment, until the lost gaze returns. That's what blessings are. A single moment that touches your heart in such an indescribably beautiful way you never forget it.
m.s, poet
