The Fading

She stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by piles of possessions. Pictures, dishes, clothing. A few items in boxes, but mostly stacks of stuff. Bedding neatly folded on her dresser. She had managed to strip the apartment to its bare bones.

"I'm all ready," she announced proudly. "Everything's packed."

For a moment I couldn't find my voice, spinning from the realization: she didn't know where she was. She remembered nothing of the last 48 hours. Packing, sorting, moving truck, family members scurrying around to help her through the transition. She could recall none of it.

"Mama, this is your new home. We've already moved and unpacked. Don't you remember?"

My words wilted her like too much sun on an evening primrose. Like a naughty child, she apologized, "I'm...I'm sorry I messed up. Seems like I do that alot lately."

We started putting things back in order. "You said you were moving me to an assisted living facility, and I thought it was today." She tried her hardest to reassemble the pieces of random thoughts in her mind, as if trying to fit together a giant jigsaw puzzle. "I remember Marco hanging the curtains." But the pieces seemed to float away from her grasp, leaving her confused and unsettled, circling her back to, "I'm sorry."

She's fading away, this amazing mother of mine. Brilliant, capable, steady, charming, fun. She's still there, at least in those mind pictures I resurrect when the fading away gets too painful. Where does memory go, when it goes?

We finished our task. It was lunchtime. We headed toward the dining room.
She held my hand...or did I hold hers? Who was the mother? Who was the child? Together, we'll figure it out.