In a small, white room sits a fragile, lonely woman. My grandmother. She is dying. Once a mother, lover, wife, now she delights in little things as if she were a child. When she speaks, I feel the echo in her mind.
So many things she doesn't remember.
On the wall, among the lush trees of green and brown, a village hides away. Shadows of its inhabitants wander just beyond sight across the empty leaves. Reflections of passersbys were once visible on the surface of the water. A frequently traveled path leads from the illusive village to this stream where two boats rest, bobbing in the frozen water, eager to carry figures under the footbridge, around the bend.
Yet this is just a painting.
Across the hall there is a girl with long brown hair. Every day she writes in a book of something unknown. It must be about living here in this hospice, for what else is there?
Again I'm with my grandmother. We kiss. We say good-bye once more.
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