Am I an Orphan yet?
Maybe my body is protecting my soul. Maybe my sciatica is acting up to make travel impossible. To make going to see my mother something I can be excused from doing. I feel so badly for her. She’s more or less alone even though she’s receiving care. She has pneumonia on top of her dementia. She’s confused about why she feels weak and in pain. She thinks this is her new normal. I’ve forgiven her. For much. I’ve cherrypicked the good things about her, about us together, that I want to remember. I call. I talk with her. I think it makes her feel better. Me not so much. How do you love someone who never learned how to truly love? I love the mother I see in front of me now. I’m grateful for now. I still remember when I was alone. I was a child with a mother and yet a child without a mother. The stories I read showed me how it could be. Some might say should be. My real life taught me how to love more fully. More selflessly while still holding onto myself. My dad is already gone. I knew he loved me. But it was the 50s. Fathers mostly went to work. Though he was the one who taught me how to wash my hands. Both sides and between my fingers. I wish I could have been there more before he died. I had work and a child of my own. But still. Still is what my mind won’t do right now. It’s searching the rooms of my heart. Looking into old dusty chests. Sticking its head out the window and trying to see the future by the light of tonight’s full moon.
Cinse Bonino
2023
