Ma helps me sort glass when I’m mosaicing my mirror artwork suncatchers.
We sit across from each other for hours. When I come up for air, sometimes I see her focused like a laser on a pattern of her own. No adhesive. She likes fleeting sparkle. She can start over and over.
Other times I look up and she’s gone, leaving only her shell, still and quiet. Eyes closed. Ma has hiked off into DementiaLand.
I love the times I look up and see her covered in rainbow reflections from the glass on the table. She’s not aware. No one is but me. She perceives a change in my rhythm. She takes a break, lights a cigarette, blows smoke among mirrors and perversely, that’s when the magic ends.
