deep within the forest of her mind.
The trees are old there.
Their branches twist together
until there is no beginning,
no ending,
no clear path home.
Sometimes she thinks she sees her father.
He is standing beneath an old oak,
perhaps wearing the coat he used to wear,
perhaps holding something in his hands.
She calls to him.
“Dad?”
But the forest gives no answer.
Or perhaps it does.
A bird calls somewhere beyond the trees,
and for a moment
she is a little girl again,
walking beside him,
holding his hand.
Or perhaps that never happened.
She doesn't know anymore.
There are faces in the forest.
Her mother.
Her father.
Her brother.
Her sister.
Her children.
People she once loved.
People she sometimes blamed.
People she thought had hurt her.
People she may have hurt herself.
The years have become tangled vines,
and Terri can no longer tell
which memories are true
and which have been shaped
by loneliness, anger, fear,
or the strange machinery of forgetting.
She remembers being angry.
She remembers being hurt.
She remembers carrying something heavy
for a very long time.
A bag of old grievances,
perhaps.
A lifetime of you did this to me,
and you should have known,
and if only they had understood.
She carried it through childhood,
through motherhood,
through years she once believed
would stretch endlessly ahead.
And she cannot remember
when she first picked it up.
She cannot remember
who put it into her hands.
Perhaps no one did.
Perhaps she built it herself,
one stone at a time.
Now she sits beneath the trees
and looks at the burden beside her.
It seems enormous.
And yet she cannot remember
what is inside.
Only that it is heavy.
She wants to open it.
She wants to understand.
But the forest shifts.
The path disappears.
Her father's face fades.
Her mother's voice becomes birdsong.
Her children's names slip away
like leaves carried down a stream.
And Terri begins to cry.
Not because she remembers
what happened.
But because somewhere inside her
there is still the feeling
that something happened.
Something important.
Something unfinished.
She whispers into the darkness:
“I'm sorry.”
She doesn't know to whom she is speaking.
Perhaps to her father.
Perhaps to her mother.
Perhaps to her brother or sister.
Perhaps to her children.
Perhaps to herself.
Maybe all of them.
“I should have loved you better.”
The words surprise her.
She doesn't know why she says them.
She only knows they feel true.
Then, for one brief moment,
the forest becomes quiet.
And she imagines her father
sitting beside her.
Not accusing.
Not disappointed.
Just sitting.
The way fathers sometimes do.
The way love sometimes does.
Without asking questions.
Without keeping score.
Terri reaches toward him.
Her hand closes around empty air.
But she smiles anyway.
Because for one precious moment
she believes he is there.
And perhaps he is.
Perhaps love does not require
a perfect memory.
Perhaps forgiveness does not require
remembering every wound.
Perhaps somewhere beyond the tangled forest,
beyond all the names and dates
and forgotten conversations,
there is something that dementia cannot take.
Love.
The simplest thing.
The thing she spent so many years
trying to understand.
The thing she might have missed
while she was busy being hurt.
Now she cannot remember
the reasons for her anger.
She cannot remember
who was right.
She cannot remember
who was wrong.
She cannot even remember
what path brought her here.
But she remembers her father's hand.
Or thinks she does.
And that is enough.
She closes her eyes.
“Forgive me,” she whispers.
The forest remains dark.
But somewhere through the trees
a small light appears.
And Terri, lost as she is,
begins walking toward it.
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