This is what I thought the last time I sat on the floor at my mother’s feet, double knotting her shoes.

I thought- this used to be my bedroom. I was a little girl here and I slept here when I outgrew the crib in my parents’ room. I had Peanuts sheets with a Snoopy dog house pillowcase that I sometimes wrecked by falling asleep with gum in my mouth. I have an early memory of being woken up from a nap, being dressed in a frilly blue dress, and taken to a photographer for a photo that is still hanging somewhere in my parents’ house. I fell out of the bed at night and was frightened, and my big sister would come into this room and comfort me.

I thought- this was my mother’s sewing room when I moved into the bedroom down the hall. It was always a little warmer in there when she was sewing. The incandescent bulbs on her desk emitted a faintly noticeable heat when you walked in, and it sounded like the mechanical purr of the sewing machine and the blathering on of am talk radio. She liked to listen to hosts that represented her opposing political view “just to keep track of what they are up to.” It was a comforting sound on a rainy weekend day, and she would usually emerge from there with an impressive creation I will never be able to replicate.

I thought- it won’t be long before we don’t live here anymore, and another family will fill this room with little girls, or impressive hobbies. They won’t know what happened here and won’t really care, just like, unfortunately, I don’t really care about who lived in the present house I share with my son and husband. The people who live in my parents’ house won’t know that I fell asleep most nights to the sound of my parents giggling and cracking each other up.  I hope the next owner will be able to feel it though.

I thought- it doesn’t take long to go from a mother tying her little girl’s shoes in this room to that same girl tying her mother’s shoes. Both instances, so that she doesn’t trip on her laces and fall down.

And that is our biggest challenge now. My mother loses a little more of her footing every day. What is given to you as a child gets taken away, step by step. Like slowly walking into peril. When I recently took her with me to Target, she became confused trying to cross the lot in front of the door, and froze. Traffic was stopped in both ways as I bent down to her, arms outstretched, trying to coax her to me. “Come on, Honey. Come on. You can do it. I’m right here.” I learned that from her, because she said it to me, and usually closed with “Come to Mama.”

My father, of course, would like a big break and would like to, as my sister would say, “be with his people.” He would like to go to his birth family and be with his sisters and brothers and their families. And of course we will do everything we can to get him there. But also of course, I am afraid of how I will take care of my mother when she can’t find him and becomes alarmed and I am afraid of how to care for her physical needs. Double knotting her shoes won’t soon be enough to keep her safe.