My mother is still alive. My mother is having a seizure and I am six. She falls to the ground and adults push-pull me away so I cannot see. My mother is dying of pancreatic cancer. My mother is steering the canoe from the stern, her paddle nearly silent as we glide past swans, giant as ghosts. My mother is riding horses. My mother is reading books about how to ride and care for horses. My mother is teaching me how to sew, my sister how to cook. My mother is holding a newborn puppy like a glass vase. My mother is watching the Olympics on television, her wonder infecting us all. My mother is flying in some other world, maybe riding a flying horse, maybe her beloved big red horse, the one who stands guard over her when she has a seizure and snaps at anyone who approaches, the one who lowers his head and opens his mouth for the bit so I can slip his bridle over his ears. Every day all at once she is doing these things. Every day of my childhood she is falling and riding and loving animals and singing outside. Her short hair is falling into her eyes and she is pushing it back so she can see.
