The Visitor

Good Morning!

She looked to be in her mid to late 70s.  I could see that the years had furrowed her face and I was sure that her eyes had seen many hardships from a common life.  Her gray hair was disheveled, her body full and that as one would expect as the many years had worked their ways.  In a “T” shirt, denims, street shoes and one right-hand workman’s glove, she moved with a silent determination and at first, I thought she was here to pick the annual black berries that were now so prolific on the vines, down below the house and slightly in the swale. 

As she worked her way slowly and cautiously past the berries and into the wet part of the swale, it became apparent that she was on a different quest.  Now something was just not right.  You know how it is when things don’t quite add up?  Well, this was one of those times.  I watched as she worked her way deeper into the brambles and as she would look around, occasionally up at me, pausing without expression.  My call to her offering help unanswered, it was then that the police were summoned. 

Before the two officers arrived, she had worked her way just out of my sight having come back out of her inroads only twice briefly as if to re-evaluate her progress.  There was now blood on her hands and arms from the thorns of the berries.  The vines can be vicious and have no regard for any age, but especially so for one with such thin skin.   I am concerned and at the same time engulfed with a sad feeling for this soul that has lost her way.  In this state of confusion, her life to this point would be just a blur and the loved ones along the way, a faint recognition. 

Isn’t that the way it works, we are held to one another with our memories of the emotions we have shared?  A birth, personal tragedy, jubilation and celebration of achievement or shared death of a pet all blend into the experience.  It doesn’t really matter what, how or where, as they are all shared emotion that makes memories and through the memories comes bonding.  Bonding that forms the framework for love and love becomes the riches of our life.  For the woman, at this moment she was losing it all, all of those things that she would have held dear and the ones who cared for her.  I think that is what made me sad for her and feeling what she has lost. 

The officers talked gently to her and eventually coaxed her from the bog.  Patience was the order of the day, for it takes time to understand the state of mind someone is in, and especially when they are confused with their surroundings and the essence of their soul.  

Now there are six officers and three paramedics on the scene.  She is sitting on the lower wall with the officers, shaking, confused and weeping.  Trying to explain her situation and what she was doing.  How can someone make sense out of an irrational action and then explain it to someone else?  Maybe just discovering what has happened and frightened at the days ahead. 

I would think it terrifying to come out of a nebulous state of mind and not know where you had been, done or even what had gone on.  I find it amazing that some people induce that state on themselves.  Although it could even be worse remembering and realizing that it could happen again beyond your control. 

Her husband is here now and talking with two officers.  He apparently has been looking for her since she had wandered off at the mall behind our house.  I am grateful that we were on the deck and heard her in the brush, for she could have ended up back in the swale lost, desperate and possible expired there.  The ambulance staff works with her now and she breaks down in tears when she looks up and sees her husband. 

She eventually agrees to go to the hospital for checkup and from there the decisions of her life may well now come from others.  I do not know her and probably never will, yet I know of her in seeing my mother in her confusion and the loss of all we had cherished for so many years, gone just as quickly.  We are the memories we leave behind and the lives we have touched.  They carry on just as our children carry our genes.  It is my hope that this woman is comfortable wherever she ends up and her days may still contain some memories of better times.

As you go about your day-to-day, please remember to leave a little of yourself with the ones you love. 

Love, Dad

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