The Tiny Bird Inside Us All

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Yes you’d better believe I’m scared.

I turn away from the news and will my limbs up from the chair and pad about my kitchen and straighten up my bedroom and wander the aisles for groceries and my hips and knees cry out for me to sit the hell back down.

I’m trying to look after myself better, so I get my COVID and flu vaccines and stop into urgent care for the pain in my right index finger that’s been there for weeks. The young doctor reads the x-ray and reassures me it’s just arthritis. Just arthritis. When the fuck did I get old enough to get arthritis.

Then I’m back home providing breakfast to my mom whose cancer and cognitive decline are in a race to overtake her completely. When I arrive she is in the arms of the night caretaker, frail as a small bird who fell too soon from the nest, stick thin, hair wild, eyes like saucers. I refill the pillbox and re-count the number she needs for morning, afternoon, bedtime, and two am, and think of the pills I take each morning to ease my journey and see I’m already on the conveyor belt to where she is now. It started yesterday. It started last year. It started a decade ago.

I hold her tight and walk her to her tiny table and run my fingers through her hair and she closes her eyes and I lean down and kiss her softly on her lips.

Did you think this was going to be about America?

xo

🤗 Here’s a hug for all the Democrats.

🤗 Here’s a hug for all the caretakers.

🤗 Here’s a hug for all the women in menopause.

🤗 Hugs are free medicine. If you’re feeling helpless I suggest using them with reckless abandon.

✍ How are you? Let me know. Leave a comment.

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