We think our lives are so unique —
no one else has gone through
what we have
but along comes an early stage
dementia, toothless woman
whose loving son took her
to a genealogist and she
found out her mother, who
died shortly after the woman
was born, was madly in love
with the woman’s father.
The early stage dementia woman
was her mother’s love child,
but her mother couldn’t ever
hold, caress, kiss and
tell her baby. The woman’s
tears of gratitude dropped into
her toothless, laughing mouth —
the salty sea washing away the
unknown — tears telling her
she was, indeed, loved.
We, too, toothless and
not knowing much at the
beginning as the woman
was toward the end,
were
loved into life.