Early

I woke up this morning with the deepest ache, and then my thoughts turned to the old ones, especially my mom and my Aunt Winnie, who are so frail and lonely now, and I don't spend enough time with either of them, my mom because she is overseas, and my aunt because I work too much, and come home after she is asleep for the evening. We used to talk by phone on such days, I would call her from work, but now we can no longer do that, she makes sounds I don't understand, they are speech sounds, and they really sound as if I should be able to understand what she is saying, but I don't. In her presence, I do better. I can understand whether she is speaking from a place of light or dark, depending on the arrangement of lines on her face, the playful humor or pinched regret in her still clear green eyes.

I wonder sometimes, do we feel the ache first like a chemical sorrow, and then we look for reasons?

More reasons. This month will make two years since my mother in law died. How is that possible? I lay in bed missing her so much this daybreak. She was the loving force that held us together, and I miss the way we all were when she was here. I realized this morning that my husband will be alone in New York on the anniversary of her leaving us. I want to be with him, it is the day after Father's Day, but there is somewhere else I need to be, and it is the only week I can get there. My daughter and I are going to visit my mom in St. Lucia for a week. This may well be our last trip to St. Lucia to visit with my mom in her home as she may finally be too frail to stay alone there.

My mom has worked out a system where someone comes in and stays with her at night, but the days are lonely. Her sainted housekeeper of many decades is occupied taking care of her husband who suffered a stroke two days before my mom returned to St. Lucia this last time. She didn't tell my mom what had happened until she arrived, afraid that my mom would decide not to return home. But of course, she has to attend to her husband, my mother wants her to attend to him, but now there is no one to help my mother most days except kind neighbors and friends who may or may not drop by. Like me in New York, they are trying to keep up with their lives, with work and raising children and managing their households. I get it. But I ache for the way my mother's life has been reduced by her waning ability to do for herself.

She can't really lift a plate from the microwave to the table, so even though her meals are lovingly prepared and left for her, she still needs the help of another human simply to dine. My brother is coming to get her to take her back with him to Jamaica in early July. My daughter and I decided we needed to get there before my mother leaves her beloved house next to the beach in St. Lucia, where she and her grandchildren spent so many charmed summers, just in case it is the last time.