For Isabel
We never knew when she went away...
exactly.
It was over a period of time,
A little loss, each day...or hour.
Accumulating surely,
slowly,
but steadily,
in the wake of our determination to stop it.
This can’t happen to Mama, we wont let it.
But it did.
Nothing we could do
or say brought back the loss.
Leaving a little at a time,
Creeping
steadily away
to God only knows where, we didn’t find it.
I guess it is a misnomer to say the loss
accumulated but...
that goes along with the
frustration of it all.
The only thing getting larger
was the number of unread thoughts
in her conscious self.
That imaginary room where we all go to reason.
First it was polite mistakes covered over with
hurried excuses.
Then dumbfounded
looks as thoughts drifted apart
in the middle of speaking.
Motor skills begin to
wane, and die,
as loss takes over life’s necessary functions.
Eventually the child brushing her mother’s hair
had no reason
to hurt...But she did just the same.
Even a tiny spark of knowing
who was caring so much for her,
would have been gold to
the daughter,
but the reward usually never came.
Soon the child once brushing her mother’s hair
didn’t hurt
for her mother... but for herself in
the wake of no one for which to care.
Having been in emotional overload
for so long her own feelings
are now lost.
She doesn’t know how to feel.
In honor of my wife whose mother passed in this fashion.
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