Rhiannon Dickerson

[16 degrees this morning]

16 degrees this morning. Thursday. Mid-November. The kind of cold that makes you more aware of your aliveness. The earth is a landscape that easily dismisses you. There are too many places to hide. You’ll go to your mother's house to make her breakfast, and while you are there you’ll make her dinner. Try to find something to talk about other than her cancer other than her chemo other than how she slept last night or how she feels this morning. You will not ask. You remain silent because you don’t know the way from here. You bought a recording device so you can keep your mother's voice, so she can tell you her stories. You will want them. Your children and grandchildren will want them. At 53 she is the oldest person left on that side of your family. When you take her to the doctor's appointments every week, you push her in a wheelchair.