One day in time

     Aging with grace the old woman put forth her best smile. Her lips painted a bit off, and her favorite dress had seen better days. She had her hair done which always made her feel pretty even though I constantly reminded her of her timeless beauty. She wanted to wear her silver flats, but after several attempts at getting them on, she gave up and slipped into her fuzzy white bedroom slippers. "How do I look," she asked me? "Like the beautiful lady, you are" I replied. I put a blanket across her lap, and we proceeded out of the nursing home and onto the city street she had requested to go. I pushed her wheelchair slowly so she could look in the store windows at all the things she said she would have again someday. “I want that blue dress," she said suddenly and louder than her usually soft-spoken self. "Well, maybe tomorrow," she said and looked off in the distance like she was trying to remember where she was.

     We continued our walk well into the day, stopping for lunch at her favorite diner. A place she told me she went to quite often with her late husband. She smiled at the waitress who asked her what she would like and without hesitation she replied “ A double cheeseburger all the way and a chocolate shake please “She made small talk while we waited for our lunch, but mostly she looked out of the window at people passing by, and I wondered if she was back somewhere in a time when she was young, and her memory never questioned.? She tackled that cheeseburger as if it would be her last meal with mustard on the corners of her mouth the only thing left uneaten. She didn’t seem to mind when I gently wiped away the mustard and smiled her thanks. We left the diner and began the long walk back when sleep came to her. I covered her lap and brought the blanket up around her chin as the late afternoon had a bite to it.

     Back in her room, I sat next to her not wanting to wake her just yet. I looked at her beautiful face and the wisps of hair she so loved having done. I took her feeble hand in mine and softly kissed it, remembering all the things she did for me with her once busy hands. She must have felt the kiss as she opened her eyes and smiled, a smile only a mother can have for her child. "what's this" she asked me as she opened the white box with a pink ribbon I had put on her lap. Tears rolled down her face as she pulled out that blue dress, she saw in the store window. It didn't matter to her when I bought it only that it was the most beautiful dress in the world. "You will have to take me dancing," she said with excitement. "And I'll wear my silver slippers."

     The nurse came in and said it was time for her to get some rest after her busy day. She kissed my cheek and held her hand on my face before getting into her bed. The nurse tried to take the dress and hang it up, but she would have nothing to do with that. I turned to look at her as I was leaving, a sweet, wonderful lady that is my mother, holding on for dear life to the memory she made today.

www.facebook.com/mikeoconnor-author

www.michaeloconnorwriter.com