The Wish

I wonder when I’ll know me again. Everyone around seems to know me. I feel scattered. I feel adrift. I feel unmoored. I feel unfamiliar, though I’m familiar with all that is around me. All these people around me are sailing in their little boats, moving swiftly through the river of their days as if everything is the same, but nothing is the same. I watched my capsized boat descend into the depths of something dark that I didn’t recognize, and now I am trying to move forward in chest-deep mud flowing in the opposite direction of my course. Their lives move on and forward, but mine has stopped and moving in any direction, especially where I perceive forward to be, is pushing against this unknown mud leaving me immobilized.

There are some moments. He brought one to me.

It was as though I found some solid footing with this man. He had seen it all, he had struggled to help me solve the unsolvable. This man reached out and took my hand. He traveled through my memories, he patiently listened to our stories, I brought him through six decades and realized, afterwards, I did it unconsciously so someone would remember what no one other than myself knows because she is gone. Tenderly, genuinely, he asked me what I wished for. I was vacant. Void. No wish on my breath. Nothing. I think about it now… what do I wish for?

I wish –

I wish –

I wish I knew.

With any other person I could have been clever and hidden behind the humorous façade of a dripping sweet voice of a beauty pageant contestant and said “World peace,” but not with this man, because, deep down, I know that he, too, is searching for that person I once was. So I was honest and answered what I’m sure was either disappointing or alarming.

“I don’t know what I wish.” I tell him that I feel scattered. And I apologize.

There are parts of my life – people – dear, cherished people who watched, from a comfortable faraway place, the collapse of my world. They watched the terrorist Lewy Body take my mother hostage. They watched the collapse of my Mom into the Lewy Body Dementia’s cruel abyss. They watched the collapse of me, of my Self. I guess that most of them felt that upon Mom’s death that my life would be so much easier – that I would be able to go and do “what you want to do” without the weight or concern or the responsibilities to Mom and the care I provided. The day she died, I started hearing the question – asked by “loved ones” and people who cared for us – me – “What are you going to do now?” I know I said, “Grieve,” and, of course, that wasn’t what they meant. People were quick to, stuttering, reword their question.

No. I mean, what are you going to do with your life now that you don’t have to care for your Mom – now that you aren’t tied down – now that you are free?

No matter the way it was worded and no matter the good intentions, it seemed that only a few people understood that, hard as it was sometimes, it was my choice. it was NOT the relief that they perceived it to be. They did not see that the world had stopped, that things had tipped, and, like a cat clawing to a screen door in a windstorm, I was focused solely on holding on.

I don’t know – though 6 months have passed since Mom died – no, seven and a half months have passed since Mom died, I guess I must appear okay. People who take a moment and look closely, or listen carefully, see the cracks. My routines are not normal. I go to bed early and get up wickedly late. I do not sleep. I find difficulty in the traditional or routine things of before. I am guarded, even when I’m open, and when I start to talk it is more common for me to use the word “we” than “I,” and “us” than “me.” And they can see me think about how Mom and I used to do something - or they catch me when I slip saying “Mom is going to –“ or “When I tell Mom –“

Mom is gone.

She took the only me, which I called “we,” with her.

I don’t want a commitment. I don’t want 8-5. I don’t want to be unrooted without a home. I don’t have a home. I don’t have a home or a home town to go to.

I do not wish.

I breathe.

I put one foot in front of the other in the mud. I am literally faking “normal.” It isn’t really a conscious fake – I just find myself – even in the midst of something fun, enjoyable, or meaningful, not really there

What do I wish for?

I wish I knew.

I wish I were doing better because, if Mom were here, she would be so disappointed in our paralysis.