Come Back

 I may have mentioned that my mom was a writer. I may have even told you about a story she wrote that zig kept by his bedside. A story about her mom disappearing to dementia. Then Zig wrote his own story. About watching his mimi slip away. Zig is a man of few words, so reading that paper was like a little door o to his complex mind that I could open. I could read it and see how much he loves her. How much she meant to him. 

Dementia is a nasty and hateful disease. It’s like an elevator. You know you are going down, but then it just drops and you end up in the basement before you have a chance to stop anywhere. That’s happening to my mom right now. She was already on the ride down. And then another drop. No warning just gone.

 Zig and I talked a little about when we would go up again. How we would hug her tight and tell her we love her and make sure she hears us. 

Zig and her, they were two peas in a pod. He would wail and wail and she would just sit and rock him for hours. He spent so much time with her. They were partners in risk avoidance. They would look out the window and she would say, “Looks like rain.” He would reply. “Oh, no. We should stay in today.” It was a riot.

 And now. And now.

For a few months after moms first drop Zig was in denial. “She’s fine, Mom.” 

But now he sees that it takes an extra minute for her to see him. But when she does, they have this second. This bright flash of all that they had. It’s wonderful and heartbreaking. Like all of this life. 

I would cry and break down and tell her how lost I felt and she would just sit and hold me. And she would come back again and again to save me. To save my kids. To make us laugh and hold our hands. And we are all just wishing she would come back again and save us just one more time. Save us from having to say goodbye.