Spring had returned to the mountains almost without Terri noticing.
One morning, she woke to birdsong.
She lay in bed listening to it, trying to remember what the sound meant. Then she smiled.
"Spring."
The word came easily.
That felt like a small miracle.
She dressed slowly and carried her tea to the chair beside the window. Outside, the snow had surrendered to patches of green. Tiny wildflowers had appeared beneath the trees, and the branches that had looked dead all winter were beginning to swell with new leaves.
Terri watched them quietly.
She had always loved spring.
Or perhaps she had simply always loved beginnings.
She couldn't remember.
That was becoming the hardest part.
There were so many things she once knew about herself that now existed only as feelings. She knew she had loved certain people, though sometimes their faces were gone. She knew she had traveled, though she could no longer remember where. She knew there had been happiness.
And sorrow.
So much sorrow.
But the details were disappearing.
Terri sometimes wondered if forgetting was another kind of test.
She looked toward the sky.
"Why do we test You so much, Lord?"
The question surprised her.
She hadn't planned to pray.
But prayer had become something different since the memories began leaving her. She no longer needed the right words. Sometimes all she had was a question.
Sometimes only a name.
Sometimes nothing more than a sigh.
She folded her hands.
"So many things frighten us."
She looked at her trembling fingers.
"We lose our money. Our homes. Our health. The people we love."
She paused.
"And our memories."
That one hurt.
Terri looked down at her tea.
She couldn't remember what she had been thinking about five minutes earlier.
She knew it had been important.
Now it was gone.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
"Why am I afraid?"
Outside, a hummingbird appeared near the window.
Terri watched it hover among the flowers.
She had no idea what kind of bird it was.
But she knew it was beautiful.
And suddenly she understood something.
Perhaps faith wasn't the absence of fear.
Perhaps faith was what we did when fear arrived.
We turned toward God.
Terri had spent years doing the opposite.
When life became difficult, she worried.
When something disappeared, she clung harder.
When someone left, she tried to understand why.
When the future frightened her, she tried to control it.
And now, dementia had taken away almost everything she could control.
Perhaps that was the cruelest lesson.
Or perhaps it was the most important one.
She looked at the spring trees.
Everything human was temporary.
Money.
Possessions.
Health.
Youth.
Even memory.
Everything changed.
Everything eventually slipped through our fingers.
But Terri wanted to believe there was one thing that did not change.
Love.
The love of God.
The love of Mary.
The love of Jesus.
A love that did not depend upon remembering.
She could forget God's name.
She could forget the prayers.
She could forget the Bible verses she had once known by heart.
But perhaps God would not forget her.
That thought settled over her like a blanket.
"I don't have to remember You," she whispered.
Her voice broke.
"You remember me."
She sat quietly for a long time.
Then she noticed the garden.
The winter had left it untidy. Dead stems and fallen branches covered the soil.
Terri thought about getting up.
It seemed like too much work.
Then she remembered something else.
Not from yesterday.
Not from last year.
Something deeper.
She remembered that gardens needed tending.
So she put down her tea.
She walked outside.
The mountain air was cool against her face.
Terri bent slowly and pulled a dead branch from the flower bed.
Then another.
She didn't know what flowers would return.
She didn't know what she had planted.
She didn't know if she would remember doing any of this tomorrow.
But she worked anyway.
A little later, she found a tiny green shoot pushing through the soil.
She knelt beside it.
"Hello," she whispered.
She smiled.
The plant didn't know her name.
It didn't need to.
It simply grew.
Terri touched the earth with her fingertips.
Maybe that was faith.
To keep growing when you couldn't see the whole path.
To trust the season you were given.
To accept that some things must die so that something new can emerge.
To believe that even when the mind becomes confused, the soul can still be held.
She looked toward the mountains.
"Let me not forget, Lord."
She closed her eyes.
"Because without You, I am nothing."
Then she corrected herself.
"No."
She smiled through her tears.
"Without You, I am lost."
The distinction mattered.
Because lost was not the same as abandoned.
Terri stood slowly.
The sun had broken through the clouds, illuminating the mountainside in soft golden light.
She breathed deeply.
"Guide me."
A breeze moved through the trees.
"Give me peace."
The birds continued singing.
"Help me share whatever You have given me."
She looked at the tiny green shoot.
"Even if all I have left is kindness."
She returned to her chair by the window.
Her tea had gone cold.
She couldn't remember when she had made it.
She couldn't remember everything she had prayed.
Perhaps by tomorrow, she wouldn't remember any of it.
But as she watched the sunlight move across the spring garden, Terri felt something inside her settle.
She was still afraid.
She was still forgetting.
She was still alone in the little mountain house.
But perhaps she wasn't truly alone.
Perhaps the presence of God was not something the mind could lose.
Perhaps faith lived somewhere deeper than memory.
Terri closed her eyes.
And for a moment, she simply rested in the knowledge that whatever tomorrow took from her...
God would still be there.
And if she forgot the way,
He would remember it for her.
