Flight Risks

at The Fig this past spring

Yesterday, I found myself rushing from one flight risk to another.

After Frankie and I sweated and swatted gnats forever (ok, just a couple of hours),  I visited my mom.  Our visit was relaxed, peaceful.  Punctuated with her wisecracks and wise words.   We’ve come a long way in the last few weeks.  

But lest I forget that we’re adjusting to a new normal, I look only as far as her wrist.  She wears a ‘bracelet’ that alerts the caregivers when she is too close to a building exit.  In my mind, I imagine the  Elvis Emily has left the building announcement and see her smile.  While she has settled in, she would sing that refrain if she could.

While visiting,  a text came in from my son.  The one who moved into a dorm this past weekend.  ‘Rushing home to grab something.  Don’t forget to play my piano-recording on your phone for Grandmother.’

So I played a grandson’s music for his grandmother.  And then I fled home so that I could see  my son as he dashed in, dashed out.  You see, he too is a flight risk. 

Yes, he’ll come back home, and possibly often.  There will be favorite meals and laughter, short visits and longer visits, but there’s been a shift.   He will come home and leave again.

There is no going back.  I know it.  I feel it.  Change has come.  For the grandson and the grandmother. 

And I hear, and ask,  Frodo’s question in The Lord of the Rings. 

How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand… there is no going back?

This is all I know right now.  Turn the corner.  Just turn the corner and walk.   Walk in the grief, but limp in gratefulness.  And   look up at the big sky and observe the birds of the air.  The big sky covers the one whose wings have been clipped and the one who has spread his wings. 

the reluctant flight attendant,

june