The kitchen is steaming. I’m helping Jessie cook chicken in the wok. It’s cold outside, but warm in here. And laughter, mother-daughter. She hears the door, yells “Daaaaddy!” goes running with her delight. For a moment, split, it is the time before. Before her strokes, when she was whole. For a moment it is holy. Moments are what we get. Until the frontal lobes forget their function and her flailing acts of violence crack the windows and the walls. We brace our bodies, tense our muscles, all 600. Let the strongest one, our hearts, beat a rhythm through the fog.
Nancy Huggett is a caregiver, writer, and settler descendant who lives in Ottawa, Canada on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people. Find Nancy on Twitter @nancyhuggett and on Instagram @nanhug.