Old-Timers

As a leaf touches a pond and sends shivers down the water’s silvery spine,

The frost chill morning shakes some primordial circadian rhythm and I stir.

What am I to live for today?

My grandmother has been slowly living, no food or water for seven days.

And we’ve got no response from her for five years.

Alzheimer’s patient or vegetable?

I used to think that Altzeimers was old-timers

My mom would slur the word together, the way only a true Memphis native can.

My eight-year-old self conceded that yes: my grandmother was old and she forgets.

In fact, she forgets all the time.

Once as I was making a Christmas card for my dad, I asked “Does daddy have two or one ‘Ds’ “.

Her response was just as puzzled as mine, all she could muster was “I don’t know”

I replied, “ Well, Dady looks correct”.

“Yeah”

Having a grandmother with a child’s intellect wasn’t too bad though,

We would have fun throwing a blue rubber ball back and forth.

On Christmas morning I used the jewelry box that my mom got,

The kind that snaps back in place and has a soft little velvet cushion on the inside. 

We pretended it was a clam that whole day.

We would try to reach our fingers inside of the box before it would snap back down.

Old-timers disease can make you young again.

But even though she can’t remember a thing, her life was brilliant

It was true and resonating like the last note a choir sings inside a cathedral

With the sound wafting up to the high ceiling

And reverberating through the stained glass.

Singing the agony and joy as vividly as the Stations of the Cross.

And even if I forget all of it, my job, my children, my family, my name.

Let me live as she did, with purpose and meaning.