20 February 2004

She doesn’t know who she is. She is an Alzheimer’s paitent. She is fine, at complete peace. She feels the world and is happy. And then she finds out that what she dreads most of all has happened. The worst thing that could ever occur in her world has happened a long time ago and she has been blind to it. Shock wraps her body in layers and layers until they snap. Like a spike through her heart she knows it, through and through. Her tears fall like stones, and she can’t bear the pain. She is lost in her own grief, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. Her hands are over her face. She pulls them away and stares at them, unknowing. They are covered with tears, as is her face. She doesn’t understand. Like the blood from a wound they remain, dripping off her fingers. She racks her brain but doesn’t understand. She desperately wants to know what has caused her so much pain. She looks around to no avail. The tears dry. She leans back, happy with the sun and the birds and the wind in the trees. And she relives her pain, day after day, a terrible discordant pattern of joy and agony, joy and agony, moment after moment after moment after moment…