Dear Sarah Ann,
Here I am, thinking about you again and enjoying the memories, just like you taught me to--our Sunday afternoons at the skating rink; our taffy pulls in your mother’s kitchen; the secret penpal letters you sent when I was in the hospital in third grade. You loved me so well through childhood, and then I grew up and moved away and forgot you for almost forty years. When I came back and found you in the retirement home, though, you welcomed me with open arms, as if I had never left.
Every time I visited, you gave me gifts from your treasure of memories. “Memories are so important, Bets. They’re what we live on.” Memories were your gold, and you were careful to live on the ones that brought you joy. You especially enjoyed your memories of my parents and all things they had done for you over the years, even back before I was born. You loved to catalogue their kindnesses.
I remember the helium balloons someone sent you for your birthday—how you tied them to your walker and brought your birthday with you to the dining room three times a day for as long as they could fly. And I remember the little artificial Christmas tree we put on your bureau that first year, and how you said it was the best Christmas you could remember. You were, by choice, easy to please.
The last time I visited, we both knew you would soon be gone. The cancer was finally winning. It was Christmastime again. I sat beside your bed, and you held my hand. I cried, and you didn’t try to stop me. “It’s alright, darlin’. You go ahead and cry.”
Sometimes, I am tempted to say ‘if only’—if only I could have one more visit with you; if only I had brought my children to visit you; if only I hadn’t missed the forty years between the taffy pulls and the retirement home. But you would hate that. You never did have time for ‘if only.’