evidence

Evidence

Flipping through photographs,  I catch the past

I am enveloped by it

I have bathed in it from time to time in a morbid sense of regret

but 

not like this.

I am joy,

I am nostalgia,

I am memory.

Reminded of weddings  birthdays, vacations, day trips, moving days, performances 
holding tight intense embraces reserved for a rare few 

him, you, us

things I've forgotten then remembered again and again like a goldfish it is  a new scene every time.

I smile, I close my eyes

then like a brick wall I run head first into... 
the smile that I see in all of us, it is part child and part worn out mother of five.

I knew it was coming, it was all a build up to that moment of discovery

It almost always is. 

Flashing through pictures of

her children

me

them

the stages of our lives

her grandchildren

her sisters, brothers

her friends 
in two minutes, faded evidence of a life lived well

and

short

and

hard 
with joy.