Member-only story
El Purio: Night Time of Reflection
My cellular cannot get a signal in the room but still holds enough charge for me to call Fabiana. I am spending the night at a training center for mill workers; La Casa del Azucarero.
The sleeping quarters of the training center consists of three or four bunk filled rooms strung along a cement walkway. My room has six sets of bunk beds in close quarters jutting out from the walls left and right. At the far end of the room the only door other than the entrance leads to a bathroom with one shower.
It’s dark when I finish my shower and step outside to find that magical spot where something that would pass for a signal exists.
I listen intently to Fabiana, trying to get an update of the happenings on the home front. A quick hello and she cuts to the chase.
“Your mother is going downhill. She’s calling the dog Sasha.”
Sasha is my daughter’s name. My mother does not have dementia. On the contrary, her lucidity makes her very aware of her body’s decline. At ninety-five, she has stretched thin the resiliency of her body. Walking, painting, reading; all the activities she had once enjoyed daily are now things of the ever growing past, never again to be performed. Her remaining time is a slow crawl to the finish line, but she is doing all within her power to be tortoise-slow about it.
