MEMOIR
There Are Times You Can’t Go Back
And that’s just how it is
2009
It was 4:30 in the morning when my cousin and I squeezed into the old elevator with creaking wooden doors and went up to pick up my mother from her brother’s apartment. She was 87 and he was 89. Both of them were waiting for us, dressed and with the luggage by the door. We had to catch an early flight that would take us back to the US.
I can’t remember any of the interaction inside the apartment. I probably blocked out that memory. Coming out into the hallway, my mother walked by her brother who stood by the entrance in a colorless knee-length house coat with thin beige socks falling around his ankles and slippers.
I noticed they did not acknowledge the moment. It was as if another visit was coming to an end. Yet the image froze in my mind. I realized this was the last time they would see each other. She would never be able to come back here.
My mother was in her second year of being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. She had been back and forth to Bucharest over the previous two years, as my uncle had lost his wife of over half a century. She helped him with the loss and he helped her with daily life. They also helped each other 68 years prior as they went through the war.
