Remember

A parent dies and suddenly there is one fewer person to remember.

I lose another source to confirm how hard I cried when the nurse jabbed the needle into my thigh or how proudly everybody cried when I graduated from college. One fewer voice laughs now when we remember that crazy vacation. One fewer mind sharp enough to tell me who I was back before I knew.

We are at half power now and holding. But the day will come, as it must, when my mind, my memory, will be on its own, the sole witness to a past that recedes into the distance without any safeguards.