I am at a loss as he opens the top two drawers in turn, peering in briefly and then closing each. I am not sure what he's looking for, though it seems to be connected in some way to something he was remembering aloud with me before it grew thin and trickled away. He opens the third a few inches - just far enough for me to glimpse the piles of photos lifted from albums long ago, slipping out of elastic bands into shifting and faded layers like the memories he is trying so hard to find. I know that some have a name or a date on the back, but - with his aversion to recording personal or family history - most do not and never will. "Might something in here be of help?" I venture. He tilts his hands back, knuckles close to his shoulders, then slams the drawer firmly shut. He stands motionless for a few seconds, then sets off with his walking frame away from me, one hand raised: do not follow me.
I acquiesce. But my heart goes with him ... In a little while, I will bring tea, and he will smile, and we will sit together and all will be well. In the meantime, I slide onto a chair at the kitchen table and look at the not-quite finished gathering up of the scraps of my own life for last month. I am learning how hard it will be to have a sense of the shape of my years, if there is not a place where the bits and pieces, the flotsam and jetsam, can be safely held for the days when internal memory fails. The sudden thought of a scrap album or a photo book as my memory's external hard drive makes me smile - Himself would understand that concept! I make a mental note to tell him when he returns from his turn to be with the Littlies. Slipping the last few photos in, I add a final paragraph and a date, and press Save. Julie, I am grateful to you for your wonderful Month In Numbers! Here's the February 2015 edition from up here ...
And now, I think, it's time I was putting that kettle on :).
