When I first took my mother in, her mind was slipping—she traded her bed for street pavements and benches, roaming the streets, shouting at ghosts. Her once steady hands, strong from braiding hair and cutting cane, now trembled, lost, as if the world had become too slippery to hold.
But today, she stands next to me at the counter, her eyes scanning the breakfast menu, as if deciding between the dinner role or the 6”
is her biggest challenge of the day.
There’s a confidence in her now, a quiet dignity that we have fought to restore.
After our morning walk, we sit together on bench at school. The air is crisp, the kind that wakes up your skin.
She looks at me and smiles, the kind of smile that says she’s still here, still herself, and maybe, just maybe, she’ll hold on for a little longer.
We say it takes a village to raise a child,
but it takes an entire village to rescue a woman from her villains self and life. Every hand ,
washing away the sins of madness, vagrancy, hopelessness, aloneness, shame, indignity, the community hands becomes a baptism bath.
