Lifelines
My ninety-three year old grandmother, locked away in her assisted-living facility where she rarely sees anybody, keeps this and other sheets of paper in the purse she can no longer reach for on her own: it is a hand-written list of all the birthdays of all her children and grandchildren, cousins, and other kin.
Last time I moved my sorry self to see her, she asked me to take it out and read a few dates out loud, because she was afraid there was a birthday coming up that she might miss.
As I unfolded the sheet taking care not to rip it along the worn out folds, I could barely contain an emotion, perhaps because it so greatly surpassed me.
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