Fading into the Light

Having witnessed the pre-dawn miracle
Of my son's birth, I left the hospital
Raptly clutching the Polaroid image
Of him blanketed in blue swaddling,
His cheeks scratched by tiny fingernails
Clumsily flailing against the brightness,
The light that engulfed him after the slap
And the snip of his umbilical cord.

My Mother-in-Law's kitchen light was on.
My knock intruded upon her Sunday rite
Of communion with coffee and newsprint.
Gazing tenderly at my new son's picture,
She embraced her role shift from a mother
To grandmother, her love eminating
Already toward that image of a child
Who would come to mean so much to her.

The child whose name has now fled her memory.
A strong woman can accept growing old,
Embracing each year like a new grandchild,
Something to be lovingly fussed over.
Louise had never been that strong.  Childlike
In her vanity, she'd been an ornament
On the arm of both husbands she'd outlived.
She was happiest when dressed in fine gowns.

Never so devastated as on that day
When after having caused an accident,
She heard an officer refer to her
Via radio, with "Joe Friday" terseness
As "a confused elderly woman."
"Do I really look that old?" she asked us
Tearfully, as if our denials could help
Turn back the hands of time's ruthless advance.

Now Alzheimers is hastening her decline.
Her memories have lost their focus.
Images flee beyond recollection
Like photgraphs that have been left too long
Upon a desk for the sun's rays to caress,
Sapping them of their detail and color.
Clarity fades into a shroud of indistinct white
That wraps her thoughts in a befuddled haze.

Osteoporosis bends her body forward
Into a question mark that puctuates her
Confusion.  She hears words she no longer
Comprehends, has thoughts she's no longer able
To express.  As death approaches she'll curl up
Into a fetal-position, womb-secure.
When the brightness that spooks a newborn beckons,
She'll head toward the Light and be absorbed in it.