Hanging On

Once she had blossomed, a bold, independent spirit, educator, wife, mother, grandmother; now she is barely hanging on. I sit beside her bed holding a limp, withered hand in mine. A hand which, when younger and stronger, had drawn colored pencil illustrations of stories she told me about life in far away seacoast villages. Barely outlined fishing boats, sails unfurled, dancing on white waves, fading into the distance; village houses with steeply pitched roofs to shed heavy winter snows; all drawn in a few shades of blue. A collection of those drawings, now framed, are hanging on my walls. My gaze wanders out the window of her semi-private room, into a small courtyard where a pink dogwood is dropping the last of its spring blossoms. A small branch is broken and by a thin strip of bark, it is barely hanging on.