Patchwork

pieces of her quilt
scattered like ashes waiting
to be deciphered.

Where to begin? The job of rifling through someone's personal possessions, an honor, or a curse? Sacred if nothing else.

Unfinished journals of innocent beginnings and troubled middles tucked away everywhere: In drawers, boxes beneath the computer desk, hiding in cubby holes throughout the house. Some dated, many not. Events, not always in sequence. Smudges of tear-stained gray leading down the dark hallways of pain and suffering interspersed with pages of hope and joy: The dissolution of a marriage destined to fail, the agonizing account of nursing a father through the final stages of cancer: A page turner that shares space with fleeting images of happiness, penned in a lighter more fluid hand. The birth of another grandchild, a son's recovery from addiction, exonerating her from the burden of guilt that she had carried around for years. The ghostly laughter of family gatherings remembered in each and every ledger.

Under the bed, wrapped in a faded silk shawl, the only journal precisely dated from beginning to end. The downhill spiraling of her mother's descent into dementia. The last entry, a prayer of gratitude bringing it all to an end.

tied up in a bow
beginnings, middles and ends
life's paradox