She Is Here And She Cannot Remember

She is in the next room.

That is the thing nobody knows what to do with. Not gone. Here, in a chair, with the radio on, and you can go and sit with her in about nine steps.

And she does not have it any more.

You asked, two years ago, when it was already slipping and you knew it and did not want to know it. You asked lightly, the way you ask a thing you are pretending is not urgent, and she started well and got three lines in and stopped, and something went across her face that you have not been able to put down since.

You have not asked again.

And people say things about it. They say at least she is still here, and they mean well, and the sentence does not fit inside what this actually is, because what this is has no name. She is here and the recipe is not. You are grieving something while the person is in the next room.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything about a kitchen.

This is about her and the cooking is second.

Nothing here is going to hurry you toward a pan, and nobody is going to tell you how to feel about a thing that has no name. And if you read this to the end and decide not to make it and never to ask again, that is a complete and good ending and this article will say so.

Cast me not off in the time of old age

There is a line in the Psalms that asks something specific about the far end of a life.

Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. (Psalm 71:9, King James Version)

Forsake me not when my strength faileth.

It is not a prayer for the strength to hold. That option is not on the table in the sentence, and the man does not ask for it.

What he asks is to be kept. Not restored. Kept, in the failing, by somebody who does not leave when the capability goes.

You are being shown a request for presence rather than for repair, and a mother who can no longer produce something has never once stopped being the one to be with. Psalm 71:9 asks not to be forsaken rather than asking for the strength back, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man nine steps from a chair in the next room.

And notice who is speaking it.

This is the old man's own voice. He is not being talked about by his family. He says it himself, which means he knows exactly what is happening to him, and he is still the one making the request.

That is worth carrying into the next room. She may know more of what is going on than her face lets on, and being spoken to as a person rather than managed as a situation is something she can still receive.

You have somebody who can still be spoken to rather than only cared for, and a person who cannot produce the answer has never once stopped being able to receive the question. The Spirit of God is the one with a son who has not asked again in two years, and Psalm 71:9 puts the request in the old man's own mouth.

The recipe and the asking are two different things

Here is the second part, and it is one separation.

The asking has been treated as a way to get the recipe, and because that failed, the asking stopped. That is a reasonable chain and it is the wrong one, because those are two separate acts and only one of them is about food.

Asking her about that dish is a conversation about a thing she was good at. Even if nothing comes back, even if it goes the way it went two years ago, the asking itself is one of the few remaining ways of saying: you made something that mattered and I am still here about it. And here is what may happen, and it is worth knowing. Sometimes the hands remember when the words do not. If she is standing near a counter with something familiar in front of her, something may come back in her hands that could not come back in a sentence.

That is not a technique for extracting a recipe. It is a reason to be in a kitchen with her rather than at a chair with a question.

You have been asking for a list rather than for her, and a question that got no answer has never once been a wasted question. Psalm 71:9 asks to be kept rather than to be made useful again, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has not gone back into the next room with this.

And here is the part that matters most, and it is permission. You do not have to ask. Not this week, not ever. If the thing that went across her face two years ago is too much to go looking for again, then do not go looking for it, and nothing about that is a failure of love. Some people ask once more on a good day and something small happens. Some people decide the asking costs her more than the dish is worth, and that decision is exactly as good.

You have permission to protect her from the question, and deciding not to ask has never once been the same thing as giving up on her. The Spirit of God is the one in that hallway with a man deciding either way, and Psalm 71:9 makes the request about not being forsaken rather than about being useful.

What this week is, in the next room

So here is the assignment, and most of it is not cooking. Ask her once more this week if it is a good day, and cook it or decide not to.

If it is a good day. That is the whole condition, and you know better than anybody what a good day looks like in that chair. Do not ask on a bad one. And if there is no good day this week, there is no obligation.

And if you ask, ask differently. Not what went in it. Ask her who taught it to her. Ask where she was standing. Ask what her own mother's kitchen smelled like. Those doors are sometimes open when the list is closed, and even when they are not, the asking is a kindness rather than an examination.

You are going in with a different question rather than the same one, and a conversation about her own mother has never once been an examination. Psalm 71:9 keeps an old man a speaker rather than a subject, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room with a chair and a radio and a son.

Then the second half, which is genuinely open. Cook it this week from whatever you have, guesswork and memory and all, or decide not to. If you cook it, take a small plate of it in to her, and do not ask her whether it is right. Just put it beside her. And if you decide not to, say that out loud somewhere in the house, in your own voice, and let it be finished.

You are bringing her a plate rather than a test, and food put beside somebody has never once needed a verdict from them to have been worth carrying in. The Spirit of God is the one in that room with a small plate on the arm of a chair, and Psalm 71:9 asks only to be kept.