I Think of My Mother, I Think of Maureen

Three years after my mother’s death, I broke my left wrist
in a fall. My right wrist was sprained, my dominant hand
barely working. I couldn’t drive or open jars. I couldn’t wash
my hair. I couldn’t type or hold the phone very long.
It wasn’t pretty when I tried to eat. In physical therapy,
I turned a peg along a Velcro strip, and it almost broke me—
the throbbing, the swelling. Doctor Ryan soaked my hand
in a crockpot of paraffin, then pulled. When I tried
to unlock my front door, I broke out in a sweat.
It took me a few tries to open the fridge. Julie opened
bottles and cans for me and lifted the plastic off my hummus.
When Cindy drove me to the orthopedic surgeon, she had to
buckle my seatbelt. It took all my might to flush the toilet.
Ice packs and heating pads and a painkiller that gave me
a stomachache. I couldn’t wear anything with buttons
or tie my own sneakers. I had no use for sneakers anyway
because I stopped going for walks—I felt so unbalanced
with my wrist in that brace. Maureen told me after she lost
a breast she kept losing her balance. And for a while
she used a cane. I broke my wrist a year after Maureen’s
death. In time, I recovered enough
to take my car to the store. I thought of Maureen—
the chemo that fractured her spine, the pain that went away
only when she slept. My mother struggling to get her walker
out of the trunk, then making several trips
to bring in her groceries. First the bananas
and then hauling that heavy, heavy quart of milk.