(2015)
“A mosaic, ” writes Terry Tempest Williams, “is a conversation between what is broken.”
Across the room from me sit two women, their minds eaten away by dementia, or life.
The loud woman is quieted as the quiet woman covers a trembling hand with her own small, quiet hand. A gift.
There is conversation but I cannot make it out.
This place
is rife with, full, brimming with pain and dying.
I found her, the one I came for, sitting alone on her bare bed in her shared room.
“I think I’m dying” are the first words she says to me-her gaze surprisingly direct and intent.
I take her hand and lean in close so that my forehead is touching hers.
“Then what sis?” I ask. “After dying comes cookies and ice cream.” I am shamelessly invoking the sweet gods that comforted us in childhood.
“Yes” she says, then a question: “cookies?” And I begin feeding her the snack I hold in my hands.
Today- like too many before- she is dressed warmly, but she shivers. “Are you cold?”
“I’m fr-freezing.”
So I gently urge her bones so lightly cloaked in flesh, into another layer.
It’s then I realize-
the odor, sharp and burning…
A quick message sent to the one who loves me most,
“I won’t be coming home before my meeting. I’m sorry about dinner.” (Not that he ever holds me to such an expectation or ever has-no.)
But I am leaving in the morning for 6 days, and a home made dinner the night before going is a gift I wanted to give.
Instead
I do what needs to be done, searching her closet for warm, dry pants, hoping to find some that actually belong to her-
I take her hand
then we make our slow stop and start journey to the bathroom.
A few days ago I was
receptacle, listening,
taking in the pain and grief of the one who loves me most;
the road we’ve traveled,
the much that has been lost along the way and
I am flooded-
overwhelmed again with the enormity-
the all of it.
Diseased and damaged body, siblings who are, all three,
very ill. Others whom I love most, suffering.
I sit there facing into these words that seem to burn with sorrow,
anger
at the injustice found in every life,
in our lives.
It’s like I imagine drowning must feel.
Of course the tears come again and I find I am holding my breath.
The softest touch of a kind hand on my shoulder urges me
be here
breathe
feel this pain.
I do.
I must.
I kiss my sister goodbye, promise to visit soon, say I love you, as my eyes brim.
Stop off for smoothie-dinner.
“What did you do today?” the young man asks.
I say the words “oncologist” “dementia”.
Handing me my dinner-drink- he finds my gaze:
“it’s on me”. And I know then that he speaks truth.
My pain- somehow, inexplicably dancing off my tongue
landed in his compassionate soul and is now
on him.
A gift.
Two hours later I bask in the arms – held tight against the frame of one I call son.
I am held and comforted.
I don’t need to speak.
He knows.
A gift.
At home, another long strong hug- this time, my baby- 15, this larger-than-life child of mine also recognizes the pain,
maybe it’s in my eyes, maybe it’s the way I look around as if startled by a sharp noise.
He holds me long and close.
A gift.
A few minutes pass as I reconnect with the All that needs to be done before tomorrow’s morning flight.
Then
daughter-friend, sits close on the sofa, leaning in.
I rub her back. “So much pain” I say. She knows.
A gift.
And I know now this thing called life
demands from me what I truly believe
I can’t afford to give.
Yet also gives to me- again and again
Gifts
that I assuredly cannot allow the pain to madly paint over with its broad black strokes.
The truth I now believe even while I hesitate:
Life is both-
Pain
Gifts
and oh so often they are holding hands.
by 