aTRACKion

Chapter Forty Two

Doug....

Just as the dawn of a new day is spreading splintered daylight into the bedroom, I stare down at a sleeping Frankie. Her eyes are closed, yet her eyelids have the puffy and sad reminder from all of her tears that she shed from the night before. Sat beside her while she deeply sleeps, I stare down at her. I stare, wishing that I could take away all of her uncertainties by the time she wakes up.

All night, I have been thinking.

All night, I have been sat outside of the funeral directors, just wanting to be nearer to my mum. Before her Alzheimer's, mum was the person who I shared everything with. Before that savage disease took her, she was the one who I always confided in. And my god, I wish I could confide in her now.

Mum always knew what to say, her opinions were always lovingly offered and never forced on me. She was one of those amazing women who had wisdom, intelligence, strength and experience. And those four qualities were always shared by her with warmth and with kindness. I think that must have been why my father fell in love with her. Mum was attractive, both on the inside and out.

All the thinking about my mum, then equally had me thinking about my dad. In the darkness of the early hours, I kept wondering what he would have thought about what is now happening to me and Frankie.

I was only eleven when I lost my dad, but I was old enough to cling to many wonderful memories of him. Dad was an articulate and passionate Portuguese man. He was robust, an exuberant and engaging gentleman. He was driven by all that he was passionate about, and that included my mother. Just as he had fearlessly loved her, he loved me. He would read to me, share his ideology of life with me, no matter how young I was. My father was all about learning. Learning about the world, history, life, his passions, and being a father.

Maybe I could be like him?

After all, he was still a part of me.

He always would be.

As would my mother.

And it was while I was sat in my car, wishing I could have one last conversation with my parents, that I realised just how lucky I was to have had them. Through all of the loss and the pain over the years gone by, I realised that all of that loss and that pain wasn't what I now remembered...I now only remember how much they had loved me.

That got me thinking.

Life can be hard.

It can throw you right into the path of a wrecking ball.

But it can also be easy.

It can place you right into the middle of something amazing.

That's when I knew I had to get back to the apartment, back to Frankie. She, is my being in the middle of something amazing.

Being sat beside her while she still peacefully sleeps, this is where I should be. My hand reaches out to stroke her hair, the hair that I have noticed has some golden hues shimmering within it when in natural sunlight. Then I stroke her cheek, the cheek that has too many tears that have dried upon it from last night.

This sleeping beauty makes me happy. More happy than I ever could have imagined, and probably, more than I deserve.

Shamefully, I handled my mum's Alzheimer's badly.

Shamefully, I could have been a better son.

I'm not going to keep running from my problems.

I'm not going to irresponsibly ignore them.

Today, I am going to do things differently.

**The video above is: I GOT YOU - BEBE REXHA