My mom, dad, brother and sister-in-law are in town. They drove from Minnesota to Portland in two days, a blizzard on their heels.
This is my dad’s first trip to Portland. We’ve lived here eleven years, but I guess he wanted to make sure we were serious about it before he traveled cross country to see our place.
He’s impressed that it’s so green and we have flowers already.
My mom’s been out to visit several times. I hope I’m wrong, but this could very well be her last trip to Portland. She has Alzheimer’s. She’s on a combination of Alzheimer’s drugs right now and doing quite well in my estimation. But there’s no predicting how long it will be before she deteriorates.
Last night, she sat across the table from Nora while I made dinner. Nora held a tortilla chip out to my mom and then pulled it away as my mom dramatically reached for it. Over and over.
Nora was in stitches and my mom wore that grin of hers that says she’s having fun. She sort of raises the left corner of her mouth.
I wanted to drop everything and capture it on video. I wanted to seal up that moment in a glass milk bottle and keep it on a shelf. Something huge was happening in the space of a tiny, ordinary moment. A woman was connecting with her grandchild; they were both completely in the moment.
I’m hoping the next few days will hold many more of those moments. I plan to have my camera at the ready.