away from her

- you know this weekend would have been grandmother and pete's 66th wedding anniversary - my mom told me.

and 8 years ago we put down finley. the nice thing about grandmother though is that her tenuous grasp on reality doesn't include pedestrian constructs like days, months, years or the finer details of losing someone. the gross loss is still there, but an anniversary isn't.

- i took her to the dining room upstairs and she asked me if there was anything i wanted her to do. she asked the aide who brought her lunch the same thing. while i cut up her sandwich we looked out the window and she watched the wind in the big oak tree. i talked about the shapes of the clouds -- she usually likes that -- and she was sort of interested but she was in a different place, just a really bewildered place. her ice cream came and she didn't know which end of the spoon to use. when i took over she thanked me and said i was beautiful, that i looked like a good soul. and was there anything else i wanted her to do.

my mum isn't a crier, and here's her voice wavering delicately.

- i lost her. she's another person, finn. she's nice, but she's not my mother.

when i followed up a morning 4000yd swim practise with a run-bike-run-bike-run-bike-run brick in the afternoon D shook his head but didn't ask why.