I So Wish You Remembered

Published in The American Scholar

Spring 2024

Toward the end of my mother’s life, when she couldn’t carry on a conversation, I took to singing for her. She lived in a group home for people with dementia in the Maryland suburbs of Washington. I live in Brooklyn, and even before the pandemic, I visited her only every few months. So maybe lockdown wasn’t all that different for her, but on Zoom, I couldn’t help feeling mean, yakking on about my incomprehensible life as she dabbed her mouth with a handkerchief, big brown eyes blinking slowly, a caregiver at her side prompting, “That’s your daughter, Miss Catherine. Say hello to her.”