When does a memoir begin and when should it end? I ended this blog, a memoir of sorts on a happy note. An upswing in life. Swings have a way of eventually behaving to the laws of gravity, if left alone they will rest. They may become stagnant. They could fall apart. Whatever movement or inertia the swing takes it still tells a story.
I have not written a word in a very long time. I let life take me away from the page by choice. I have not been very happy with that choice. I struggled on finding my voice, finding my path, nor offending anyone and tending to my new relationship.
Almost a year has gone by and now I suddenly have the need to pick up the proverbial pen. My memoir continues. With that said here is what has been floating about my head:
Dear Children,
I write to you now using two thumbs and a phone. I write hoping my magical phone will
catch most errors, spelling and otherwise. There will come a time when my thumbs may not move so deftly across the tiny keys. The time has already come where I must put on glasses to see the tiny letters.
There may come a time when I forget more than packing your lunch, or what time your doctor's appointment is.
We may laugh about it at first. We will make fun and I will be the first to participate. I have always said you need to be able to laugh at yourself to make it in this family.
There may come a day when I no longer want to laugh about my loss of memory or the disappointments my body will bring me.
There may be a time when I can no longer recall the names of our former pets or your current loves.
This does not mean I no longer love you or them. What's in a name? Right now I look around me and I see all objects I can put a title on. Except for maybe that odd plant in the corner.
Simple things. Door, window, chair.
You will look at my hands and wonder how such frail papery skin held you as a baby. How hands that now trembled once managed to carry groceries, talk on the phone and keep you by my side so you wouldn't run off.
I will move slower. If you become parents you will understand that I move like a child and I will silently ask for your patience as I once have to you when you demanded on tying your own shoes which was done painfully slow and with acute precision. Let me move slow. Let me have some of the patience I have given you in your lifetime.
If you happen upon me and I am still and looking in the distance I have not left you to the loss of memory. I have gone back to you in my mind in such a real way it feels I am there. When snapped out of my memory I may confuse the past and the present for a moment. Do not force the present on me. I was visiting with you, just in a different time.
If I forgot the bad, don't remind me.
I may not want your new technology no matter how much easier you think it may make my life. To you it may seem I have given up on learning. This will
Not be the case. I am relearning everything again with the amazement and innocence as I did the first time.
I once had a cat who lived to be in his 20's. he had lost most of his teeth and would only eat cream cheese. I brought him to the doctor and told him
I was worried that he would not eat anything else. The doctor asked if he is happy,
Does he purr.
Of course he is happy.
Then stock up on cream cheese.
Ask my questions now children while you are fairly certain you will get the right answer. Ask about your family and what you were like ad a child.
Ask how I feel about things so that one day you will never ask yourself what I might have thought of something.
Don't mourn for the loss of my memory. I will do that for myself until even that will go away. There may come a time I can't recall your name or maybe your face. But that time is not now. Now I have you and you have me.
Please know that if and when that time occurs I have not forgotten that I love you. I may appear absent but know I visiting you still. I am visiting you as a baby, I am visiting you as you play soccer or as we all gather at holidays and laugh.
Oh and before I forget, stock up on cream cheese. Or in my case ice cream.
