In The Circle Game

I was eight months pregnant with our first, young Micah to be. You called to let me know that your father was in the hospital fifteen miles from Jeff's parents, where I'd been staying to safe guard this high risk pregnancy.

I'll never forget the sense of trepidation I felt walking down the halls of The Brush Prairie General hospital. The stories shared from your girlhood perspective, to meet for the first time the one who I'd held responsible for all your rage, the unresolved anger and hurt that would splash onto us, your children. But you asked that I go.

I rounded the corner and an ancient, tiny, man, afloat within the hospital bed, looked at me and called me by your name.


And there you were, Thursa May, our mother, peering out from the face and body of your father, my only grandpa. He thought I was his daughter, unseen but somehow, unaged, for forty years.
I had vertigo. It was quite a moment.

I haven't asked what your grandson might recall.