With an unsure pace
she slowly proceeds out her room and down the hall.
I grab her hand and guide her towards the back door.
"Which car is yours?" she asks. And again once more.
"It's the silver one," I respond, pointing towards the car.
She opens the passenger door and sits in the seat.
"Where are we going?" she asks with a slight smile.
I repeat the plan, as I have numerous times in the last 2 minutes
"We're going to visit your son, my brother. Do you remember his name?"
She looks at me with a puzzled smile, "You know his name," I say, "it starts with a W"
"William," she says. "That's right," I assure her.
Conversations like these are common place and may seem simple.
But they are everything.
She is my Mom.
Some days she can't recall who we are or our names. She never can quite remember our birthdays, though too true she brought us into this world.
Often I regret the questions I never asked before her memories got buried.
Questions like what it was like to have 3 kids, to have so many untold secrets, to build your life around so many others. I miss and grieve for what I wanted us to have.
But it's not about me most days.
It's about these simple questions.
Guiding her through uncertainty and panic.
I grasp her hand and tell her I love her.
She smiles back at me
and even though she'll forget this all in another moment,
I relish in this opportunity.
She teaches me to be present in that way.
A zen master in her own right.
She only knows now and some of the past.
Some days she seems broken, as I feel broken
but other days she is the smartest person I know.
Teaching me, even now.
To live this life the only way we can-in this moment. In these simple questions.
I turn the key in the ignition and shift the car into reverse.
"Where are we going?" she asks me.
I smile, in this moment.
