The dining room window is open wide.  The smell of summer wafts in on a breeze, fresh cut grass.   My mother is leaning out the window, hanging the laundry on the clothes line that stretches across our backyard. The radio is on in the kitchen and the song, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the old Oak Tree,” is playing.  I start dancing around the dining room table singing to the radio and laughing.  My mother is singing with me as she reaches into our old clothespin bag.  I remember the feeling.  I remember how it felt to be in that moment.  The memory has come back to me now because the same song is on the car radio. I am on my way to visit my mother and am only a few blocks from the Memory Care Unit where she now lives.  Tears come to my eyes, because although this was once a memory that we shared, now it is only mine.

http://www.theresadodaro.com   Author of The Tin Box Trilogy