A Visit To Mom

Atypically, she was alone and silent, wig askew, all the muzak shut away behind her half-closed door. I knew that she had also drawn the blinds within her mind, to soften the impetuosity of joy. She struggled to pull back the thoughts that like a child would run away too soon-- reminding me again that all the "simple things" she ever thought or said elude her; then the love that she had stored within emerged to let me hear her say, "I am so thankful for my family." Her 97th year, a time for facing new goodbyes, new deaths in her to come, that we will string upon the fraying tie that flesh alone will bind. Then in parting our embrace extended past my equanimity; I stepped inside the elevator, closed the door, and thus once parted from her struggled unsuccsessfully to don my streetwise smile. ~ ____________