Forgetting Me

I had hoped for Forget Me Nots, but the clock is ticking.

It is February now. Where have I been? The faded petals are falling fast now, just like the memories. 

In her mind I live far away across the water; I never phone or come to visit. I have just kissed her goodbye, but even though she called me Dear, who knows who she thought I was as I kissed her? I am thoughtless in my neglect of her - to her it seems I do not care. Her little girl has abandoned her, leaving her in the confused little empty world that she now inhabits.

I phone a few hours later and the joy in her voice as she says my name in disbelief. "Is it really you?" she asks, "it's been so long.... You've been gone so long..."

The next day when I see her, she smiles her glazed smile - her eyes unfocussed, and calls me Dear. She is vague. It has been a bad day today. She does not know..... the day; the time; where she has been; has she eaten and worse - not just who am I, but who is she?

It is so cruel, her intelligent mind wiped blank; an occasional memory fleeting by - contorted and mixed up. It is not I who have gone - it is she. But I stay, and briefly I am rewarded as I catch a glimmer, a fleeting moment of a flicker of recognition,

before I blur once more with all the others that she cared for and who have long forsaken her.

xxx

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