Once in a blue moon, I glance through my drafts to see what’s cookin’, and I ask myself: is this ready to finish? is this going to go anywhere? is it worth saving?
And I came upon this poem, written last October, almost to the day. I remember how I felt when I wrote it. I was frustrated, tired, wishing people would understand how all-consuming it is to be a primary caregiver to an elder parent. How omnipresent the artifacts are. How difficult it is to go anywhere, do anything, without some kind of tether. The original poem was an inventory of resentment, a reminder of the obligation I felt dozens of time a day.
Now, with my mom two months gone, these words read differently. It’s an accounting of ways I miss her. It’s not lost on me that everything is still a reminder – not of her presence, but of her absence.
There’s a term called anticipatory grief. For lack of better words, it’s mourning someone well before they’re gone. Had I known this time last year where I’d currently be, I wonder what form these words would have taken on the page.
My guess is there’s another poem coming, one that enumerates those small moments of missing, but I don’t know if it’s ready for me yet. In the meantime, here’s my time capsule from October 2023.
My mom is in my home.
She’s everywhere, right here on my laptop
in the notes I made
when I was calling and calling and calling
for her long-term health care,
in the tub of frozen bananas
on the counter
that i’ve promised myself I’d make into banana bread
because my nieces are coming to visit her
in the bag of meds I keep in the front closet
so that every week I can sit at the dining room table
and partition them into their waiting compartments
of the pillbox
i bring her every weekend,
in the cookie I set aside for dessert
from the collection she ordered
to spend down her dining tab
in the paperwork laying out
that i’ve scanned in and still need to send
though i don’t think it’s going to do what it needs
in the hand cream
i keep on my dresser, the same hand cream
i tell her will work for her itchy skin,
if only she would use it,
in the picture of her and my dad
that i keep on the dresser,
that picture from the southernmost point
from before we could ever detect his own drift southward
Written as part of the weekly Slice of Life challenge at Two Writing Teachers
Soapbox: The Way I see Things 
This was deeply heart moving slice. The loss. The poem. And the way the poem changed for you in time. Thank you for sharing. I wish to send you something – love, hugs, good wishes – but not sure whether this is what you need. You may, but don’t have to accept any.
Thanks, Terje. Tell you what…I’ll take them all!
What an incredible slice–I read, then reread your poem, hearing the different ways those words might hit. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Vivian. It’s weird, coming off of working with Lynda Barry’s guidance about not coming back to your work until time has passed. This, I think, was an example in the extreme.
“I was frustrated, tired, wishing people would understand how all-consuming it is to be a primary caregiver to an elder parent.” I can’t imagine. I try to imagine. Your poem captures the one thing and then another thing in the structure of refrain. It works so well to build a sudden world of important care-giving acts: hand cream, paperwork, pills. I feel the exhaustion and the loss. Love your mom’s smiling eyes.
Thanks. I miss my mom’s smiling eyes, too. Her eyes were always the most expressive, even to the last.
And yes, those acts are all about the little things being the big things – guess that’s true in grief, as well…
I love the repetition in this and the concrete moments. It reminds me a lot of Naomi Shihab Nye’s writing (one of my favorites), saying so much through the objects we encounter almost without consideration. This is a treasure, for sure. Thank you for sharing.
Wow, thanks! Naomi Shihab Nye is one of my favorite poets, so it makes me smile to hear the comparison.
There’s definitely something to be said for the poetry of small things, how very much we rely upon them without giving them their full consideration. And maybe there’s something to be said as a parallel for all of our small acts in the world, how critical (but unnoticed) they are.
I love how you were able to take two different perspectives from the same poem. Your love for your mom resonates throughout…you were there for her when she needed you most. 🙂
Thanks. She was there for me in many tough times as well, so it was a privilege to be able to do the same for her =))
Lainie – first of all, what a BEAUTIFUL photo of you and your mom. I know what it is like to be a primary caregiver… not the daily exhaustion of caring for an elderly parent but having helped my husband through the loss of an eye, his heart surgeries following a massive heart attack and cardiac arrest (forever an unfolding issue), and a spinal fusion last October. Life is on “pause” in these times. One loses track of so many other things, including taking care of oneself. The great needs of the other supersede own’s own. The lines that strike the deepest for me in your post: “How present the artifacts are” and “everything is still a reminder – not of her presence, but of her absence.” That’s exactly how is is after losing someone you’ve loved and with whom you’ve spent so much time. The untethering is disquieting…until you feel it pull a bit taut again, day by day, as love itself never dies. Your poem, with all those ordinary things standing as sentinels of memory…it pierces, my friend. Two months is so very recent. Love and blessings to you today and every day, as the rhythms of life go on.