Continuing The Journey
Today I emailed pictures of the Greek beach I’m staying at to my uncle
So that he could show them to my grandmother, who doesnt have a computer
A few hours later he replied saying they were bowled over by the beauty of the landscape
And that my grandmother desperately wanted to know exactly where in Greece I was
I knew she wanted this information so that she could find it on her world map
A faded and crinkled Rand McNally she keeps in the hallway hutch beneath the telephone
The same old map she used to lay out on the kitchen table when I was a kid to introduce me to the world and all its promise
All these years later, her life is confined to three rooms, a tv, a radio tuned to the classical music station, and twice weekly visits from her home nurse
But often she returns to the map she bought in preparation for her European honeymoon
To remember what is out there
So this morning she is sitting in her rollator tracing her bony, arthritic finger along the Aegean coast
Reading the names as best she can, whispering them like an incantation
Neos Marmaras, Stilidari, Tristinika
A prayer for that part of her, now within me, still out there