Reflections from Your Bedside

The woman in the next room calls me “mother” as in “Thank you, mother,” when I fix her TV. She calls you my baby, as in, “How is your baby today?”.

Dementia has stripped her of her mind, and yet, I wonder if she is wrong. Is it possible I am both mother and daughter? You are both baby and mother?

Has it always been this way? Or is it dying that has blurred every line?

Everything feels so hazy and confusing amidst the scent of baby powder and fancy lotion.

You are dying, and yet just today you made a joke; you ate some pudding.

I am walking with you towards the Great Beyond and simultaneously, I am sitting in this nondescript room playing spider solitaire on my phone.

Our lives, our roles, are fractured and ethereal.

Somehow, I am the one who wipes the morphine sweat from your forehead, even as I lay my head on your chest, looking for comfort.

I bring the spoon to your lips, wiping your chin, singing songs to distract you when you do not want to eat. Yet, I am the child, the baby, weeping when you look away.

How can it be?

Tonight the icy wind blows through the window, raising goosebumps on my skin and pulling gold glitter off the poster on the wall. I stare in wonder as the sparkles settle on your face. Beautiful.

They are fractals of the universe. The poster cost $3 at Dollar Tree.

The price of the universe is minimal, I guess.

Before this moment, I had thought that things were fixed—glitter, identity, role, time, space. But no.

It isn’t.

Because in this one moment, there are two of me in this room.

In the dark glass of your windows I watch my reflection as I tuck you into sleep. That cannot be me, I see, whispering assurances to you, laughing.

It cannot be me, because I can feel my body and I am trembling. Those cannot be my words because if I were to open my mouth I would be screaming, weeping, begging for help.

Your voice is weak when you place your shaking hand on my face. Your eyes are unfocused. I think you are looking at both versions of me.

“I love you. I worry I will miss you when I’m gone.”

Both of me bow our heads to kiss you.

I smooth your hair and climb into the hospital bed, wrapping my arms around your tiny frame. I cannot see the woman in the window’s reflection; perhaps she is soothing you still. But here, wrapped in your arms, you are calming me.

I whisper back:

You are the most beloved of every version of me.

My mother, my baby.