Mom, 9/13/12

On days like today, where it smells like fall, when the temperature sends an occasional chill through my back, but my breath isn’t yet distinguishable in layers of colder air, I miss you the most.

And it reminds me of our walks to school, when I was in third grade, and you still wrote notes in a journal and put it in my lunchbox. And The sound of your black leather oxfords clapping along the speckled pavement was calming. The air would be just cold enough that when you reached down to entwine your cracked hands with mine, your fingers would be smoother from the nip in the air.
And we’d crane our necks, laughing at the shapes that the rare wisps of clouds would make, yet cross our fingers for storms, because we loved the low rumbles of thunder. I would wear your favorite sweaters to school, no matter the fit, because I loved the way they’d smell, like the only tube of lipstick you owned and your favorite hand cream.

It was on these walks where you taught me to skip, where you always had your fountain pen in your breast pocket, because you loved the scratching sound it made when you wrote, and where I would await the violin lesson or soccer practice that night with excitement, as opposed to worry.

I loved our walks, our discussions would hang in the back of my mind for the rest of the day, bubbling new opinions and witty remarks for me to tell you when I got home. And in the evening I would constantly check the clock on the microwave to see if it was almost 6 o’clock, because you always rode the 6:09 train home.
And I knew there was something wrong the night you missed the 6:09 train.


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Mom, 9/15/12

Today in school we had to describe a smell that made us happy, and I said the “new book” smell that would waft out of your Property Law textbooks when you flipped through the pages. And the inviting smell of warm apple cider that we would drink together in front of the fire place as the orange glow radiated off of our cheeks on Friday nights. Do you remember the Friday nights, mom? When at 8 o’clock we’d walk the dogs (because we still had two of them) down to the beach and listen to the hush of the lapping waves. During those walks I was always freezing, but I’d never tell you because I knew you’d give me your jacket, and I didn’t want you to be cold. And when we’d get home you would always tell me to put my pajamas on so we could play a game of cribbage. And I’m sorry mom, I’m sorry for being so impatient with you the night you said you didn’t remember how to play, because you were scaring me, mom. Dad had always murmured on the phone to doctors about your families history with the disease, but I didn’t want it to come this soon.

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Mom, 9/21/12

I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long, but nurse Nancy says that some of the letters are overwhelming for you. And I know you don’t understand any of this... you don’t remember any of this... but this is the one way that I can get everything out. I guess I have some sort of, hope, that if I tell you how beautiful everything was over and over, you’ll start to remember for yourself. And then maybe the 2 Fridays of the month I get to see you, there will be a glimmer of recognition in your pale grey eyes. As opposed to that disappointing hour, where you ask me who I am, and tears bubble down my cheeks, because I know you’re serious. You sit in your too-clean room with the smell of saltines and old people wafting through the halls, and your innocent eyes gaze out the window, wondering everything, because you forgot all the answers. And I go home and cry into the handkerchief that you gave me when I was 7, it’s the one you said was yours, the one you would cry into in your apple orchards when you were growing up. Do you remember, mom? Growing up on a farm? And giving me your handkerchief?

I know it’s hard for you to write, mom. Alzheimer’s has taken that too, but do you ever think of me? The way I think of you in the moment before dreams capture my conscious, the moment my favorite pajamas slide up my legs and I have a burning desire, to play cribbage, and every other moment every other day.
I miss you.
Love,
your daughter