On my 34th birthday my father forgot it was my birthday
as I fed him hazelnut frosting without the cake that could make him choke.
I wiped his mouth with a wet cloth and gave him a sip of water.
His eyes were watering and wondering something wide
and unwieldy about the world, about his world in this moment
without access to an expansive library, his memory, his legs.
He stared at me and asked me about death, what it would be like,
as if a young boy who just learned of death, his eyes were wet
while he formed his words and while awaiting my answer.
I held his wrinkled hands and held back my own tears as I told him
he would be loved in death as he is loved in life, in this world as in the next.
His mother and sister and daughter were waiting for him in death, were waiting
to wrap him up in love just like those who in life loved him, just like those
who in life would continue to hold his hands as they weakened
and were colder by the hour, who would spend their birthday waiting
for his last breath and discussing death at his bedside with buttercream
caught in the dried edges of his lips.
He was not on his own, he was with me, listening to my answer
as a smirk stretched across his fatigued face.
He asked me whose birthday it was and if it was his.
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My love tells me to stop feeding my father so he can talk.
But when he talks, he no longer sounds like himself.
The dialect of his dementia is reminiscent of his childhood
which was half a century before mine and sometimes
I just want to watch him smile – a language that is never lost.
I keep feeding him in his final days because
he always closes his eyes to savor the flavors
of a dark chocolate raspberry Godiva bar which dribbles
down his chin. A slice of birthday cake which
sticks to his dehydrated lips. A coney island hot dog I cut up
into tiny bits and dab with ketchup and mustard. A still warm
cinnamon bun freshly baked from La Rue’s where we always
caught one last breakfast whenever I left Kalamazoo.
His mother’s baklava recipe I baked just for him the night before,
he could barely eat one diamond because the phyllo made him choke,
so I fed him orange blossom walnuts with a fork and I cried while he closed his eyes
trying to remember his mother’s soft hands
trying to imagine her waiting for him to finally let go.
