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Description
“Is there something terribly wrong with me?”

I sigh and look up from my book. In the evening light my grandmother stares back at me, utterly unaware that it’s the third time she’s asked in as many minutes. Complex maps of wrinkles frame her wide eyes, each crease charting the grief, joy and laughter of a lifetime she is slowly forgetting. I look at her and I remember the wit and spark that used to punctuate her speech. I remember the way she used to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere; how she’d find wonder in the simplicity of everyday life. Her curiosity, her sense of adventure, her love of the world and of all the people in it have been replaced by a child-like fear of the unfamiliar.

I look at my grandmother and behind her old, tired eyes I see a young girl who has lost hold of her mother’s hand in a world full of strangers.

“No, Grandma. There’s nothing wrong with you at all.”

curtains shift –
the faint glow
of a waning moon

Description
“Is there something terribly wrong with me?”

I sigh and look up from my book. In the evening light my grandmother stares back at me, utterly unaware that it’s the third time she’s asked in as many minutes. Complex maps of wrinkles frame her wide eyes, each crease charting the grief, joy and laughter of a lifetime she is slowly forgetting. I look at her and I remember the wit and spark that used to punctuate her speech. I remember the way she used to strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere; how she’d find wonder in the simplicity of everyday life. Her curiosity, her sense of adventure, her love of the world and of all the people in it have been replaced by a child-like fear of the unfamiliar.

I look at my grandmother and behind her old, tired eyes I see a young girl who has lost hold of her mother’s hand in a world full of strangers.

“No, Grandma. There’s nothing wrong with you at all.”

curtains shift –
the faint glow
of a waning moon