I found the silver lining

“When is he coming back, Frank. I made your brother promise me he’d be coming back.”

My mother never asked questions, but of course not. It was not her place to request favors of her children. But this was as close as she could get, I suppose, lying there in bed, able to move nothing more than the index finger of her right hand.

I remember that index finger well. She’d shake it at me when I was little and bad, like when I ate half my brother’s birthday cake before dinner, like when I threw ants on the red-hot Corning glass stove top. That wagging index finger was the terror of my childhood.

And now that’s all that remained of her, that and a scratchy, throaty voice. That damned stroke, bad enough to disable her. And she didn’t even have Dad anymore – that funny, gentle father who giggled, laughed, and made everyone feel good – even her, even bossy, recalcitrant her and that wagging index finger. Yesterday he went to the Alzheimer’s unit, miles away, probably never to see her again, or at least never to live with her, to share those intimate moments that only they knew.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her, Dad would never be coming back. In a year, he probably wouldn’t even remember who she was. And, if there were any silver lining in this long cloud of goodbyes, she would one day have a peaceful rest, too.