Everything was all right.

A rare midweek visit to the nursing home left me feeling both happy and saddened by the reality of my grandmother's life. My mother asked me how I found my grandmother, a question we always ask each other. I told her my grandmother was like a book and each time I visited, another few pages were ripped out. There are things she recently remembered that seem to have vanished from her consciousness. We spoke about my brother and when she asked how old he was, I turned the question back on her. She squinted her eyes and brought her hand to her head, clearly searching through the fog that has settled over her brain to find the correct answer. Twenty-five, she guessed. Close, I told her. Thirty-seven. She was a few years off on her own age, which my husband reasoned that sometimes he forgets how old he is too. We talked about a dog she and my grandfather had, a beautiful golden retriever named Mack. I asked her if she remembered when Mack was a puppy, when they first got him. Again, she squinted. No, Blair, but that was a long time ago, that was seven years ago. They got the dog in 1985.

And yet, this was a good visit. She was happy. We sat outside in the sun and Crosby ran around in the grass and picked her flowers. She told me she didn't remember the night I was born, so I told her the story, that she was there and Karla Scherne and the doctor and it was snowing and I was born right there in the house in the middle of a blizzard. She smiled and nodded and said, and everything was all right. She may not remember it anymore, and that's okay, but she enjoyed hearing it. And that was enough for me.