Still

   I don't try to write about Mom much anymore. It needs me to dwell in the world that defies and yet demands description, where cadavers with godawful teeth crinkle their eyes at you in loving recognition and smile the most beautiful smiles and, clearly, relish the moments you are with them. 
   That is the world where time stops — although you didn't want to go there and feel the urgency of wanting to leave every minute you are there — time stops and you are aware you feel awe for the beauty of the smelly, wrecked person who is looking at you with too much love and yet has no idea who you are. 
   I have not been a serious enough writer. I should have studied and stocked away wisdom or quotes. There are only my own sentences, and they fail. I mean them to convey my wonder, but they just make me sound sad. 
   Of course I am sad. Everyone is. My feet fall off after every visit, and that becomes an excuse for eating chocolate and buying unnecessary sweaters. And there's the great drag of reminding myself that, really, this — this being the daughter of a dying woman with dementia — this is a privilege. 
   Also, that it is not a special privilege. Most of my acquaintances have similar situations if not worse, and while they are also buying sweaters and eating chocolate, they aren't footless. They aren't complaining in blogs, or if they are, they manage to wisdom it up with Bible verses and profound quotations they've collected from their lifetimes of quiet study.
   Also I've run out of ways to say that I miss my mother. Also I've run out of reasons to say it. It's been said.