By Dorit Cypis

March 2, 2009

But a memory now still vibrant in my body, I recall standing at Ella's bed, at one end from where I could see her from the vantage point of her feet ...up to her head. I never saw her body before in this way. The blankets and sheets were withdrawn so that I, and a homecare nurse could bathe her body with wet and dry towels. We had just finished and this was a moment of a quick gaze before wrapping her body back in the sheets and blankets. Ella, a dignified woman always, was naked, beige skinned, tranquil in sleep, or perhaps something more than sleep. She was unaware of my gaze, or perhaps not unaware but surrendered.

My eyes started from her feet and caressed her form slowly, upwards, accepting the silence that was to be permanent. Upwards, across her belly, torso and breasts, forms that I had never been this close to ever before, I was calmly stricken with an awe I can barely explain. Her flesh, that for so, so long, had been foreign to me, her daughter, distant, hidden, even repulsive, was now like an innocent maiden's, a virginal young woman before child bearing, smooth, relaxed to a cell, open, becoming.... How could I have missed this? Oh how I had missed this. Slowly upwards, towards her face, my eyes teared with a moisture of sweet recognition at her lips, so quietly closed without need to form words, words that were always tumbling out of her mouth. Her lips were lucid, arrived, content, her eyes so mellow that I did not feel in them a past history of pain. The pain was gone, utterly gone. This was milk to my eyes, now drinking in innocence, peacefulness, finally, love.