The Book

This pain. I fear should I touch it; the fierceness would burn away the flesh of my fingertips.The supreme brilliance would be blinding, should my eyes fall upon its face. All sounds would forever cease if I came too nigh to Pain’s rhythmic cadence.

This pain.

Six decades have passed since I spilled from the womb; gasping for my first breath as the woman who would be my mother inhaled her last. I have diligently traveled the roads life delivered; dealt to me by whatever powers dictate our fate.  Not unlike an obedient servant, I climbed hundreds, nay… thousands of mountains; I entered, without pause, into the darkest bends; I descended naively into valleys that were laden with sharp edges. Yet my obedience is honored only with—pain.

Pain is not a stranger to me. I have felt the pain that comes with a flowering youth, devoid of a mother. I survived the pain of embarrassment that poverty delivers to her captured denizens. I recall the dark pain that accompanies harsh illness. I have shared the pain that belongs to others, the ones that I have loved. And I have cried at the pain of loss. None of these alone, nor if you were to bind them together as one, hurl them at me with the strength of Kratos, would compare to the pain that grips my soul this night.

The room is almost dark, a small shaded lantern providing the only light. I sit in my old chair, alone in my old house. I look down at my old body; searching for the nucleus of the pain. I cannot find it for it is not there. It is everywhere. I cannot isolate it, for Pain’s cascade is to great. For a moment, I think it must radiate from my gut, but then it moves—creeping to my heart, and then to my head. It is everywhere. I reach up, trying to stop Pain, my hand touches my cheek; it is wet. Pain laughs.

“It is only a book.” She told me. “Look around, you have hundreds of them.”

She’s incorrect. I passed “hundreds” years ago. The walls of my home are covered with shelves. The shelves are filled with books. The books are…

It is never only a book! Most assuredly true of this one. The one that is now gone.

“Maybe you lost it.” She said.

She doesn’t know anything about me; after all these years, her ignorance bewilders me. I am quite certain she has forgotten that she was the one that gave me the book. Two years ago, it was gift, for Christmas…I think. Now I am the one forgetting. That happens frequently as of late. Pain confuses without affinity. Yet, as certain as I am of her forgetfulness, and my own, I can assure you, I did not lose my book!

 It was Christmas; I remember now. Nothing more than a small stocking stuffer; maybe that’s why she doesn’t remember giving the book to me.

“I think you are getting too upset about a book.” She scolded.

It was more than a book. If I close my eyes I can see the soft cover hiding the cream colored pages. A moment passes, eyes still shut; it is as if the small book were now resting upon my palms, I can feel it. The cover has the sensation of fine leather, but it isn’t. I know it came from culled stock; she had no money then; to be so extravagant would not have been possible. But that does not matter to me.

Behind my closed eyes I stare at the gift. The color was a gentle flaxen, just like her hair, when she had been small enough to bounce on my lap. I turn the book in my hands, remembering. There are no words written on the cover, nor on the spine. The book’s backside is also absent of expression. Fearing I would lose this image, I turn the small knob on the lamp, extinguishing its light, without opening my eyes. I pray the dark will bring sleep. Pain creeps away when I sleep. But I am aware of God’s prior stubbornness in answering this simple request. I suspect tonight it will be repeated.

Minutes fade quickly away. Sleep will not come. I open my eyes, greeting the darkness like the old friend it has become. A light frost settles upon all my senses, allowing memories to become unencumbered. Through the blackness I gaze at that past Christmas morning; she’s not watching as I remove the book from the scarlet stocking; they, the boy and girl, siblings with so much in common, are busily unwrapping the gifts found under the evergreen tree. They giggle like little children; sitting amidst the meager selection of boxes wrapped in colored foils on this Christmas morning. Meager, yet twice as plentiful as the last dozen Christmastides. My eyes move from my children to the small book resting in my hands. Lifting it close to my face, I inhale its sweet fragrance. Slowly I open the cover—the pages are blank, pure as Christmas snow.

Does she know?

I had not told them of the visit to the doctor; there was no cause to do so. He told me that the dementia would progress slowly at first…hopefully. He could sight cases that reaffirmed his prognosis, but was also compelled to share the stories of the disease’s ability to rapidly progress. He has been my friend longer than my physician; I believe on that morning, he may have been speaking as a friend.

Only a few months passed before memory loss became more apparent, not to them, only to me. It was minor things; they would not have been aware of anyway; where had I put my razor, what day of the week was it?

I returned to his office. He offered nothing new, only fresh advice. “You should journal your thoughts. Write down the things that are important to you… things that are too precious to forget. You will need a way to keep your memories.”

I left my friend’s office with the intentions of adhering to his advice.  I walked down the road to the Woolworth’s, I would purchase a journal; a Memory Keeper. It was welcomed advice, “…too precious to forget.” 

Inside the store, decorated with red and green garland and signs announcing the coming season, I could not find a journal. I left after making a small purchase, a dozen Eberhard Blackwing 602 pencils. Soon, I would travel to the next town; I remembered seeing journals at the book store I often visited there. By the next day, I had forgotten his advice. I couldn’t remember why I had bought the pencils; they sat on my nightstand, unopened, until that Christmas day.

Pain has returned. Its grip tears at my soul. I should light the lantern. Do something, anything to stop thinking about the book. But I can’t…it is all I had…it is all I was.

I close my eyes again. Christmas morning turned into Christmas day. Snow is falling. After filling their bellies with waffles and sweet cream, they tell me of their plans to go caroling with their school friends. She asks me if I would like to come. I decline, I tell her that a frog should never sing in a crowd. They laugh and scamper out the door, leaving the floor covered in discarded and crumbled Christmas foil. I will clean it later, but first there is something I must do.

I open the package of Blackwing 602 pencils and sharpen two with a penknife. On the first page of the faux-leather journal, I write the words—Memory Keeper. For the next three hours, I wrote my words, my memories, on the pages of this most precious Christmas gift. Each day that has passed since, before my head rested upon my pillow, I recorded a memory on the cream-colored pages.

Until three days ago. That is when she took my book.

My desire was to record my memories of life with my children. I began by telling them about their birth. They came into the world only moments apart. I wrote about their first words. I wrote about the times I made them cry and the times they made me cry. I told them about their mother. She died before their third birthday; they can’t remember her without sharing my memories. I wrote about past Christmas mornings when there was little under the tree and waffles were served without sweet cream. I shared a father’s memory of the sadness I felt when I couldn’t provide more, and of the pride I felt when they never showed disappointment.

As the months passed and my illness slowly progressed it became difficult to reach back in time and find memories to record in my journal. They were there, the memories. But they are cloaked in a fog that confuses. Sometime I see them but think it is a memory that must belong to someone else. I thought I should perhaps write of each new day’s events, but my short-term-memory (words spoken by my doctor), faded as quickly as those of the past. By noon on some days, I could not remember what I had for breakfast. Sometimes I couldn’t remember if I had breakfast. My children, now almost young adults, did not seem to notice; even when their names momentarily escaped into another world. I had learned that senility is possible with dementia; thankfully I seemed to only suffer the memory loss. At least I hope so. If I did something that might be considered senile…well, I don’t remember it.

In those times that I could not write, I would read my own memories. I took note that some had been repeated; perhaps those were the good ones. A few days ago, I turned to the last few pages of the small flaxen journal, now stained with the oils from my hands and coffee from my mug. On these last few pages, someone had written gibberish. It made no sense at all. I cried. Someone had stolen the last canvases I have. No more memories can be written. I wanted to tear the butchered pages out of the journal and throw them into the fire. I am afraid if I do the other pages will fall away, taking my memories with them.

“I think you are getting too upset about a book.” She scolded.

She must have read it. She must have seen the gibberish and thought I wrote it. That’s why she stole my book.

Oh, dear God, please make this pain stop.

“Maybe you lost it.” She said.

“Maybe you stole it!” I answered.

That was three days ago. I think.

She won’t come back. She won't talk to me. I shouldn’t have said it. She’s my little girl.

I hope she will bring my book back to me. If you see her, will you ask her?  My memories of my children are written on the pages. I should tell her that, maybe she will give me my book back. She would like my children; they were my everything. I hope she brings them back. Then the pain will go away.

This pain.

I touch my cheek; it’s wet.

I think I will just sit here and wait a little longer

Maybe the memories will come.