Blog

A major time slip today.

Photo by Eric Coble

Brushing Lightning Bug’s plentiful hair is a daily adventure – usually she submits to it only when she is being a cat and I brush out all the tangles left by mice who ate peanut butter and lollipops in her hair the night before.

But this morning as we were sitting at the base of the stairs quietly brushing in the morning light, I suddenly slid in time.  

I was back seven years ago, combing my mother’s wet hair after her shower. As she slipped further and further into dementia, these quiet times between us were among our last lovely moments; both of us in the right place at the right time being the right people. Doing something very present and very ancient, eternal.  A tiny shelter from the world waiting for us outside her room.

And then I slipped back to my two-year-old girl, sitting patiently – her inner life no more knowable to me than her 80-year-old grandmother.  

But at least in that moment we were in the right place in the right time being the right people. Doing something very present, yet very ancient, and eternal.