It’s Christmas time. I set my laptop next to me on the couch and go to my brother, immobile in his fully automated wheelchair. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, as he too often does. I wipe away his tears, hold the tissue as he blows his nose. “It’s just the disease,” he says. It’s so much more, I think. I return to my laptop. Christmas lights reflect off my screen, Cat Stevens plays in the background. We return to the first of the four letters to his children that his wife has told me he’d like me to write for him.
Syd Bartman had thirty-eight wonderful years teaching English and creative writing at a community college. Now retired, she enjoys focusing on her own writing.