The Walk to My Mom's Apartment

AN EDITED VERSION OF THIS PIECE APPEARS AS OF NOVEMBER 8, 2015 IN PURPLE CLOVER , AN ON LINE MAGAZINE


I will soon be walking  slightly less than a mile, repeating a journey I have taken several times a week for nearly a decade.

I will stroll past the church with its rotating message out front, welcoming guests but warning that those who park illegally in its lot are subject to being baptized. I will move past the flashing signs at the intersection of the road notifying drivers of their speed and informing those who drink and drive of the penalties that surely await.

Past all the high rises that a few decades ago were the first to dot the horizon on the Jersey side of the Hudson just south of the Great Gray bridge. Past the myriad banks that seem to crop up everywhere, like daisies in a field or bamboo chutes that take over a landscape.

Past the law office that is home to one of those "I recognize that name from those television commercial" firms.

Past the hot dog establishment that used to sit next to the other hot dog establishment, non-identical twins, but now stands alone, triumphant. My mom used to love eating here, at the place with the really good french fries and the hot dogs that had meaning.

My mom doesn't get to this place to eat anymore, doesn't go past the law office or the banks or the flashing signs or the church. She doesn't walk or ride to my residence, which sits a few minutes from where she has resided for well over three decades. My mom's world begins and ends within the confines of  her apartment, the one at which I will soon be arriving.

It is a late October morning, the air has turned markedly colder today and there is a fine mist spraying everything between where I sit and my mom's. Part of my routine in spending time with her is to speak of the colors that I see outside. Her apartment faces west and recently the fall foliage was at its peak. I was mesmerized by the far away hills and all their hues on proud display.  I am concerned that I am less than adept at mastering the words needed to convey the beauty and majesty of what can be viewed from her balcony, what she could see if only she still had her vision.

I will inform her of what the world holds as though she is still capable of understanding my meaning and its meaning. I will tell her tales of my children, of myself and my wife, of my work and my play, of anything and everything as though she retained the faculties that have seeped out of her head, like a constant trickle from a fissure that could never be closed. She sits mostly mute on some days and on others she will respond, for a moment or two and then fall back into that place that is now her home.

From my apartment window I look east, staring now into a gray sky and at the softly moving waters of the Hudson. At the buildings that sit across the river, at this distance, as silent as my mother, but which I understand are teeming with life and noise the closer you approach. At the planes, the helicopters, the boats, all signaling the vibrancy of this moment, this locale.

My mom knows none of this anymore. For her there are images in her brain of her parents and grandparents, her sisters and brother, of a small town cigar store and a big family. Where she lives there has not been a second World War, not a husband or children, not grandchildren. Not loves come and gone, hearts broken and mended, triumphs and tragedies of the past day, week, month, year or decade. There are no new sunrises or sunsets, no leaves turning the most miraculous shades, no today and certainly no tomorrow.

I will go to my mom's on this day and for all the days hereafter that remain for her. I will walk past the church and the warning sign, past the apartment buildings and the law office, past the hot dog stand. I will continue this journey for as long as she continues hers. Though she is no longer with us, she is still here.  And I will forever try to bring the mysteries and wonders of the world inside the apartment where my mom resides but no longer lives.