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 