September 2006: Remembering Joy (cont.)

That, too, was a long drive, because finding a place for Peter closer to his home had proven impossible. The last time I saw him was over Mother’s Day weekend. The last time his dad saw him was in January. Peter’s descent in the last months has been both inevitable and astonishing, though, of course, we talk with Katy often and had heard it all. Hearing is not the same as seeing, as being there.

We took turns sitting on the side of the bed Peter was slightly turned toward, talking to him, rubbing his arm, his shoulder. Touching his face. Peter attempted to say only a few words, none of which we could understand.

No, that’s not right. He said one thing we both understood clearly. Ron made some joke about parents to an attendant, and Peter said, “Parents are good.”

Parents are good! Even when they are totally, completely, absolutely helpless?

Even when they live hundreds or even thousands of miles away?