dementia

she tells me stories of love and how it breaks my heart for, now , she and he are alone. and, i can not help but see the parallel in my own life, as i swallow the truth that this is how it must be for me to carry on.

her story takes us to space which takes my breath away.. a painter, beautiful smudges of colorful floral that i love, accented by her vibrantly dyed red hair, pale skin and stark blue eyes. we follow the halls as she points out her work but i noticed it all all ready. this is a space that contains my heart even if she doesn't realize it.

she must be only sixty but her health is poor and the on~set of alzheimer's causes her to repeat her self. for this reason i can not tell which parts to her stories are fact or fiction but, being a weaver my self, it matters not i suppose. and so we wander.. through her rooms, through her rose garden. every thing perfect in it's place where the loneliness can only echo loudly. but i walk, slowly, quietly, with a smile for i know the honor of her sharing this place. and, i love her in that moment for taking me to that space.

she tells me of her husband who left now, long ago, but who she still loves so much it is unbareable for her to see him now. but, still they do, when he's in California, even though it breaks her heart. in her story he is an Aeronautical Engineer that has saved the world a couple of times now. thanked privately by a sobbing president for having navigated a spacecraft back in that could have potentially devastated the Earth. i do not know which is real or fairy tale but i still love the sharing. she tells me how her husband, the ex now, when he first flew up.. how he saw the most brilliant rainbow with the most unique and spectacular shade of red that he wished he'd been able to show her for, as a painter, he knew how she'd love it. and, the smile on her face, well, i hoped that had been so.

she and her friend, a neighbor, had come up to me in StarBucks yesterday as i wrote at a table. intrigued, they created casual conversation and invited me to dinner that night. being halloween, i had no plans, so i joined them for pizza. it was a lovely night that helped me better understand the heart of an older female. having been close with many, particularly of the grandmother variety, i've glimpsed it many times. but here, to night, i saw it best in this light. may be for the fact of how closely it resembled my current life where i too am alone.. life is definitely funny, and that's not a joke...

almost my entire life i have been alone. when i take those moments where i felt truly, one hundred percent, ecstatically connected with another being and put them together in one ball.. well, compared to the totality of my life it really amounts to nothing at all. but, those moments, no matter how rare in number they are or seemingly insignifcant they can seem to be together they have managed to provide me with all the love, hope and joy that i feel in this world. so much so that i understand why a woman who has all ready died twice now still recalls the stories of her love with a clarity that shone brightly against the dimness of her current life. and how i cherished being a part of it.. all of it... even as it breaks my heart.