I put my mother in the yellow chair by the window.  Everyday.

"There,"  I say, "Isn't that nice."  Not the question it used to be; just a handful of words born of habit. Day after day after day.  "Isn't that nice.'  

And then I leave her there and spend the rest of the time in the den, typing and thinking.  Thinking about everything but my mother until the alarm goes off, signaling the next medical maintenance break.

My mother hasn't uttered a word or made a sound for roughly two years. Last year I thought she made a grunting sound when I was carrying her down the stairs, but it was actually me that made the sound and that scared me.  To think that she and I were non differential.  God.

So you can imagine how bizarre it was to hear her actually say something. Maybe.  I mean, really, it couldn't have been her.  Yellow.  That's what I heard, one word.  Yellow.  I jumped up immediately and ran to her.

"Mom,"  she was staring blankly, perhaps out the window. Or perhaps just this side of the window, the surface of the glass.  Or perhaps she saw nothing.  "Mom, are you okay?" 

I walked around her, looked her over.  Maybe someone outside had said hello.  It could sound like yellow.  

I looked out the window again and noticed for the first time that it was a beautiful, sunny day.   The trees in the front yard were full of buds and I realized that my mother, despite the fact that she sat there everyday, probably didn't see the buds or even the trees for that matter.  Or the sun, clouds, and birds.  She looked out, but nothing registered. Nothing meant anything.  

I stood there, looking out the window, my eyes fixed on some distant point.  I thought how sad life must be when it sails by without you, not really experiencing it when it's right in front of your nose every day.  

Just thinking about it was making me anxious, putting me on the edge of a panic attack.  But not because of my mother.  Not because she was alive and not really living in this world or appreciating all the beauty and wonder around her.  

No, not because I saw my mother's life passing by, unnoticed, unremarkable, and so far removed from her consciousness.  No, no, no.  Because that probably wasn't my mother's life.  How could I know what her life was like?  

That is my life.  Missing the buds on the trees, the birds and clouds in the sky.  The world around me that I stare through everyday, the rooms i look through seeing nothing, the people I pass on the street, never noticing them, never meeting their eyes.

My life.  My life and maybe your life.  Looking out the window and seeing only what we are looking for, or if not, seeing nothing at all.  

Yellow.  Maybe she didn't say that, but I heard it.  I saw it and I felt it.  And I will see, touch, smell, taste, feel, embrace and love the world around me from now on.  As much as I can.  

Take care of yourself.

Love,

Bill

P.S.   Mom sends her love.