8.3.24

You stepped out of your home, looking frail and under weight and nervous and shy. You offered hugs but I braced myself and blocked my heart and body with boxes of sweets that we brought for you. I felt the wall of compassion grow. I felt the depth of distancing and protecting expand. Both can be present. Both will be present. For how long?  Only time will tell.

You nervously showed us around your home. I immediately began seeing our past woven into the fabric of this life- art from beloved trips, dining room tables, with the spots from warm plates marking years of cherished family meals, covered over, side tables I bought as teenager, foot stools to rest our feet. All things I too cherished but left behind 11 years ago out of guilt and heartache. My distorted tokens of support and connection. “Keep these. Keep this as a tether back to “us”” I secretly whispered into them. 

Life had different plans.

As I watch you lose your balance, reside yourself to falling, tumble toward the floor, the couches edge meeting your face and then a finally of a full body, un-braced hard hit to the floor I saw your complete vulnerability.  I kneeled next to you and asked the only words I knew to say, “may I touch you?” 

As the night progressed and our daughter and daughter in law sat anxiously sorting out next steps and you rested upstairs, I looked around at the things that were nauseatingly meaningful to me a few hours before and felt a whole hearted “thank you.”  With that fall, I realize I detached not only from the things but the hurt that they symbolized. I fully understood that the man who weaponized those objects may still be present, but his strength to keep showing up is shadowed by the gravity of this illness.

As I sit on this back porch, listening to our daughter make coffee in the kitchen, I know that attachment, love, patience, and kindness are the only

the only

the only

focus for the rest of my time here.