December 01, 2004

Her whole life she would tell me stories, although it took me years to really listen. You do, after all, shut out the world during the time that you think that you have it figured out – you don’t hear the wisdom being shouted out at you through your covered ears. The last story that she told me was not told in print or with her soft voice, but through her eyes. Sunken back from the truth, they were staring at everything and finding nothing would return to her hands and then start over. She was mumbling without meaning to my mother and even though I thought she was mumbling ‘help’, Mom said that she was asking for water. Her last lesson was that death is a great tidal wave – she could see it and knew that when it broke she would be alone.

December 1, 2004 04:13 PM