A Visit To Mom

Atypically, she was alone unsmiling, wig askew, with all the songs shut out 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. There in parting our embrace extended past my equanimity; I stepped inside the elevator, closed the door and then once parted from her, struggled on my own to smile ~