COMING TOGETHER--71

It is Tuesday afternoon. As I am typing this, Mom is pretending to be asleep on the sofa next to me. I think she is lonely, and is there to be where I am.

I don't always want to be with her, I get tired of having to worry about her eating and health every day, every moment. I like getting away from her, but she has no one else. She is a dependant type who often uses arrogance to mask her dependency.

She badgers me with questions, as a way of talking to me since she really doesn't know how to communicate with me otherwise. I get mad at her constant questions, so I have to remind myself this is her only way to hear a voice in a world she is leaving.

She is like the image of the only person in the universe, standing on the earth shouting out to heaven hoping a voice would only come back. Without me to badger with questions, she is that person hearing nothing coming back.

If you don't believe in God, old age can be frightening to your memories.

So she lies there, just behind me at my right. It imposes on me. I wish she weren't there, I wish she were in her tv room, watching some stupid show. I've never enjoyed being around her, even as a small boy. I think I always knew we were as distant as strangers can be.

I always wished I could live with someone who did understand me, who could communicate with me, and I have known two women like that. They married someone else, so here I am.