Memory Care

The Southwestern mountains are completely different from the eastern mountains. They are more rugged, pointier, with desert colors of reds, and ochres, and beiges rather than the lush greens of the Eastern ranges. They stretch into the horizon with distant snow capped peaks, and vast valley plains between that settle into empty silence. I hate the return from vacation, with its piles of duties and calendar screaming with events. I grab hold of the eroding visions of those peaceful mountains, but it is clutching at a vapor that slowly but irretrievably vanishes.

As we were driving through one of the quiet, small towns, Asherel noticed a tiny facility with the sign, "Memory Care". She pointed excitedly calling out, "Oh Mom!" and gestured significantly at the sign and at me. I have many fine qualities (I hope anyway....) but memory is not one of them. The morning of the wedding, mother-of-the-bride Amy had given me a list of things to bring her. I wrote them on a sticky note which I pasted to my hand. Ten minutes later, I glanced at my hand and cried, "Oh! That is what I am supposed to be here for!"

Thus with great sadness, I know that those visions that are like lotion to my chapped soul will soon dissipate. The infinite sparkling stars against a black sky, the absolute stillness of the mountain forest, the rocky boulders at my feet on the cliff edge framing a valley dipping and then leaping again into distant rows of dancing peaks..... all will fade away from my mind.

This morning, my Bible verse was from Jeremiah 31:33-
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will
write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my
people.

God knows the fragile state of my bursting cranium. He has written Himself on my very heart, like a computer back up CD, His own brand of "memory care" that I might not lose Him in the engulfing today.