The best of days are days like these,
when my grandchildren come to visit.
I play catch with vivacious little Timmy, laugh
with Isaac when he sticks the wooden spoon
into the bowl of flower and milk and dust
flies everywhere,
and I sit and drink tea with solemn,
sweet Abbie while she reads a fairytale and
frowns at baby Pam when she shrieks with joy and I
wonder how life could get any better than this.
.
Peter comes home, my Peter who
waited for me before school every day, even
when I teased him by riding with Bud McKenzie,
my Peter who’s been beside me
for fifty years, and still he surprises me. The smoke alarm
interrupts his story, and I fret because how could I forget
that meat loaf was in the oven?
But my Peter takes my hand
and we go out to dinner instead.
.
The doctor talked to us yesterday
in that cold white room. Peter held my hands
to warm them up, and the doctor said he was sorry
to say he thinks I have the beginning signs
of dementia, so as soon as we left we called
the kids, and I looked around at our house
and started going through years of clutter
because soon I will not remember…
.
My son’s girl…Abbie? Yes, Abbie
spends the night for her birthday, for
I think it is her twelfth birthday, and she
asks me why there is smoke in the kitchen,
but I don’t know. She opens the windows and the oven
and says I must have been baking a cake for her
but I never baked a cake for…my son’s little girl.
.
I do not understand why they will not
let me go home tonight. I hate this place
with moving beds, needles hooked to arms, and
strangers coming to poke at me. Peter holds my hand
and his eyes are full of love, even when I snap
at him, so it must be okay here.
.
These are the worst days, when people
come to visit, with cards and pictures
and sad eyes. Today I remember, but sometimes
I forget their names, the names of my own babies,
and I am mad at myself for making them sad.
.
I am so afraid. That old lady in the bed next to me
keeps talking to me, and she knows my name
but I never told it to her. My brain is trying
so hard to think—be quite and leave me alone!
.
The young man with the funny white jacket
tells me to eat my dinner because I’m losing weight but
what is he talking about?
.
I try to sit up in bed, but I cannot remember how
to move, and I can feel the end creeping up, but
.
I’m not afraid, because my Peter is here.