Life’s Gift

There she sits on the right side of the couch, old and weak. She has been this way for few months now, barely moving, barely talking, and almost rarely smiling. She knows who she is, but can't recognize this world she lives in, she can't see the faces she once knew, the voices she used to recognize. She knows she is alive, she can touch, smell, see, hear, taste, but this is world, these surroundings are not hers, nothing she remembers, nothing she feel safe around. Yet they all call her name, touch her, say hi to her, even start conversations with her, she does answer them back and talk her way through their subjects, but she still find no shelter or refuge in that. Still a stranger in a stranger place, stranger couch, strange coffee table, strange carpet, strange windows, not to mention all those faces they keep showing and asking how she's doing.

Sometimes she is there sitting with her skinny body fading away day after day, just consumed by fear and confusion, memories and shadows that yesterday made more sense that too day, or sometimes worse, memories that were real yesterday and now just an illusion. In her little shrinking mind she is off to 1942 when she just married her husband, its an event that happened to her 4-5 months ago, now they are telling her its 2007 and that good man she married is dead, how can that be she wonders all the time.

A woman keeps referring to her as mom, yet she is certain she gave birth to no one yet, she wants to, but not yet, she is been married for 5 months as far as she is concerned. Events she knows, incidents she remembers are now being told to her by others to be history not news, HOW! She wakes up everyday and feels she is even deeper in her long gone world than she can bear. She feels like a 20 year old, but how come her legs are not responding as fast, this is killing her, how come every time she looks at the mirror there is an old lady on the side, that's not her, she is sure of that, last summer she was wearing her wedding gown and makeup and now there is this old rusty wrinkle-face woman who can barely support her head up.

This can't be her, she is sure of that. She knows she reach to the glass of water in front of her, yet something is dragging her down something is making her feel heavy and slow, she is in constant battle to understand how comes her body is not keep up with there, how come it feels old and lazy! What are these terms they talk about, computers, internet, laser, etc. She is educated, and she traveled the world as a nurse, but now she feels outdated! Was she asleep all this time? She keeps asking herself. You can see it in her eyes, the question, and word, WHY. Why do they keep tell me to eat, sleep, watch out how I stand up, or how to sleep or how to hold up the glass of water? WHY WHY .

So much doesn't make sense anymore, more than 50 years has been gone, her whole present is different, she memories don't add up, all those faces claiming to be family trying to get close to her, this woman posing as her daughter who keep bathing her and feeding her and caring for her, all this is different. All of is unreal.

Some of us dream of time travel, some of us let our mind wander into different realities and worlds, we go great lengths to speed up out growing bodies so we might look adults faster. We have a ritual where we "take five" and relax and roam into our safe zone and safe world. Now it seems nature answered our prayers and gave us an answer to that, and my grandmother got it, doctors call it Alzheimer's.

Nash S.

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