No hourglass, more like a windswept dune, blazing sun and footing that shifts just before I step. Seemed solid, now I fall, again, and look back at the hollow traces of my scrambling, as if to read my mistake, to learn something, anything, from these bruises. Heat shimmers at the horizon tempt me to change course, again, knowing their promise will lead to nothing but more sand falling away at each step.
I refocus on the IV drip, the drool from my father’s mouth and his clear blue eyes, hoping to find some clarity of mind behind them. Last week it was hospice, this, the hospital, and next, a rehab nursing home, the faint mirage of full recovery dazzling his event horizon. How can I center amidst the ups and downs of diagnoses and prognoses and expectations?
Grains of sand slip through the impossible narrowness, to find a resting place among their comrades, at least until the inevitable upheaval and another scramble for stability, like his brain trying to absorb the blood of three falls. Will healing prevail this time, or must a place be made at the oasis for its opposite? Luck and resilience run out with age, systems fade, and truly undiscovered territory awaits. I offer a hand, shape the sand for his steps, put a straw to his lips and wipe the dribble.
Just as I accept this downturn he zings a one liner and laughs – it ain’t over until Kate Smith sings “God Bless America.”
The wind billows his battered flag in my backyard, and I pray he can salute it with what remains of his eyes, and not from a cellphone photo.
I brush the sand from my eye to let my tears bless the ground – no ashes for you yet.