Day 4: Calling my grandma

Liminal dispatch, meditation, 03.21.20

I had a dream last night, she said, that I got up
and put on my blue windbreaker and went out for a long walk.
My grandma’s voice is plodding and far away, bounces unevenly
like she’s speaking from the backseat on a bumpy car ride.
Do you remember that windbreaker?
Strangely, I do.

She reigned for half a century in a stately beige stucco home,
woke up every morning, walked three miles, in all weather,
arms swinging, strides strong and jaunty.
She did that until she was 85.
Then, the slowing by degrees, fewer walks, more stumbles,
then the house on the market, the prized piano sold
after four decades as a church organist —
two floors, four bedrooms, 60 years sifted down
to a single room: how quickly our territory can shrink
to fit the demands of a new reality.

Now 99, nested in a memory care unit, she has made a new life,
plays piano “for the old people,” as she says, shuffles the hallways,
joins Thursday night canasta — but even that, so recent,
is…