Daisies

Mike bought her daisies, her favorite because they bore her name. She thought roses were tacky. There was something else that he had to remember when buying her gifts, but it escaped him just now. Forgetting wasn’t the hard part of aging. It was the constant tugging at the rusted file drawers of his memory that caused him consternation. As if his life experiences were not of sufficient value to warrant better archiving.

He could call his mother’s face to his mind as clear as a bell. Dorothy Daley had died of uterine cancer seventy-four years ago. Mike was only twelve at the time and his father was so uncomfortable with frank discussions that he thought she had died of stomach cancer until one of his aunts set him straight at his high school graduation party. The revelation intrigued him as he imagined the tumor as a dark, murderous younger brother.

He remembered the first time he met his wife. His college roommate, Stuart Jennings, had brought home a beautiful co-ed who was so drunk that Stuart had to carry her in the room. When asked to vacate the premises until “the sock was no longer hanging on the door,” Mike barely suppressed the urge to knock his teeth in. While Stuart slept off his excesses, Mike watched over Daisy and cleaned her up when she vomited. Through fifty-four years of marriage and two children, he had been watching over her ever since.

He could remember these events from decades past, but he couldn’t remember exactly what his doctor had told him last week or if he had taken his pills or not. His son, Marcus, had gotten him one of those pill boxes that has separate compartments for each day’s dosage, but he often forgot to fill it. He feared the time was fast approaching that he would be joining his wife, who was devastated by Alzheimer’s, in the nursing home. Today was her birthday. Marcus was going to pick him up and drive him to visit her.

“What are you doing, Marcus? You just passed the turn-off for the nursing home.”

“Dad, please,” he responded with a tear in his eye, “Remember what the doctor told you.” Mike couldn’t; he shed his own tear.

Mike looked at the concrete slab marking the place where his mother had rested since 1942. He chided himself for not remembering to get her flowers. Next to it was a beautifully carved white marble headstone. It read Daisy Daley, Beloved Wife and Mother, December 12, 1930 – December 17, 2013. Forgetting wasn’t the hard part.