Alzheimers

Raintears run down the cabin window, and the lights go dim for departure. It's twilight here on the ground and the sun has just set behind the western mountains. The plane taxies around in the rain for its takeoff run. In a few minutes we will be up there in the pearlescent clouds attempting to catch the sun with the same success I had catching memories the last two days. On down the runway now, a little hitch, and we've left the ground, good-bye, my mother, forever. We fly over darkening roads, lights just turning on, that I had traveled earlier in a groundling's stupor, filled with the images of a slow morning on the porch. The air was cool and the sun was warm on our faces as we sat there, you and I. I knew it was the last time and I think maybe sometimes you knew it too. We watched the world go by and you tried to remember from moment to moment who I was. So I made one last attempt to grab some memories out of the deep, and place them at your feet. Shared moments, shared jokes, shared times and places, some you fumbled, but, for awhile you began to make connections, and remembered and I was ecstatic that you were still there. I held back my tears so that you wouldn't see how hard this was for me. Yet, I could see the strain on your face as you fought, as you always had, to give me all your best. I knew then, I had to let you go. It was selfish of me to hold you in this world, that you would not remember in an hour. I sit here safe, flying into a storm. And you down there, head into the unknown. My plane races into the light, just ahead of the night. Good-bye, my mother, forever.