The sadness

Today at lunch I was trying to make conversation with my frail, stroke-stricken, demented mother, whose speech is often at odds with what she means. I asked her what was the happiest moment of her life? What was the proudest? The one thing she’d change if she could? The saddest moment of her life?

She struggled with all but the last: “I am sad because I have no future,” she said, with crystal-clear enunciation.

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