Her Face Still Lights Up When She Sees Me

I am only able to visit her now
about once every six weeks
My eldest sister,
who sees her every day is
sometimes unaware of the changes that
stumble my breath.

Her face still lights up when she sees me,
A toddler’s joy in an old woman’s face,
words coming in single syllables spaced far apart

I become her mouth, her tongue
lips forming words that she cannot find
Filling-in the blank spaces her mind has relinquished
Guessing at meaning that is probably,
at this point,
mostly projection

She’s stopped struggling to locate words, is
less pained by her inability to express thoughts.
At last,
yielding to the bogginess of her
low dusk brain.

Her memory is like a thin skipping stone
Briefly touching down only to rise again
Once, twice, maybe three times before
Surrendering to gravity and
sinking deep beneath the surface
wafting down to rest quietly
on consciousness’ muddy floor.

Today, I am ungrieving.

It is, I think, a restful kind of beauty.
My mother’s brow unfurrowed for the first time.
Ruminations of the past, worries of the future,
and unsatisfied longings all long gone.

The unfulfilled life as distant as her memories.
My beloved mother now, is
the freest from suffering as I’ve ever known her.

Her face still lights up when she sees me.
She could not, I doubt, locate me tethered in her past
but she knows the felt sense of safe,
familiar,
loved.

The days are coming soon,
when I will lay at the bottom of her lake,
when the eyes I look into
will not look back.

I gently hold the beauty of this moment
fragile like a robin’s egg
in softly cupped hands.
Gratitude that
for today
Her face still lights up when she sees me.