0.4% of a month

Where do I begin?

I walk into the small room, where someone I love sits quietly on the edge of the bed, facing the door.

I greet her loudly. I start showing her what I brought. I talk without stopping. I show her a few new books. She hands some back to me, saying she has read some of them twice. She asks what I have read, what I liked. There is a clarity and depth in her that removes any distance between us. I joke that she could get a PhD. She laughs. We laugh together.

On the table, in a small vase, there is a wilting rose left from a bouquet.

— Leave it, we'll wilt together.

I don't answer. I just look at her.

— My little girl, I see you, and I love you just as I did when you were a two-week-old baby.

— And I see you as young, kind, and beautiful.

— Well… maybe an old woman.

She says this with a soft, slightly ironic laugh.

She tells me her youngest grandson runs away when he sees her.

— You know those ugly characters in fairy tales? Baba Cloanța… that's how I sometimes feel.

We laugh together.

She returns the books she has read and stops at one: "You Can If You Think You Can."

She holds it a little longer than the others.

— This book reminds me of one I read when I was young, "How the Steel Was Tempered." It taught me how to endure, how to stay quiet, how not to complain. I endured everything, I carried everything, and I felt strong. I went all the way to the end, no matter how hard it was. But now my legs have completely given up. What would it be like if I could just say to myself, "You can walk!" and actually be able to?

She stops. Her gaze turns inward.

— And now it is the hardest thing in the world… to do nothing. To stay here. As if everything in my life was tempered into strength… only for me to end up here, without purpose.

I hug her. I kiss her forehead and cheeks. She leans into my arms, and I think she receives affection like a child. I wish I could stay there a little longer. A child in a mother's arms comes to mind. Then I remember that I was the child, and she was the one who once held me. And, for a moment, it no longer mattered who was the child and who was the mother.

Out of a month of 31 days, 744 hours, I spent three hours there. That's it: 0.4%. Three hours — a correct and useless fraction. No formula can say what remains after it.

A person sitting in a small room, still waiting for someone they love to walk through the door.

— I have to go…