I don’t understand why any of us are cruel 

It’s super bowl Sunday 

I drive to the store. Not for snacks, but for donuts and coffee. 

I think of my mom. Likely not an actual lover of football, although she claimed to love the Vikings. But more like just wants to be a part of life, of whatever is going on. 

Today she may or may not have the super bowl on. And if it is, she won’t watch. 

My mom has dementia. She sits alone—except on the days some of us in the family get to visit her. 

I reminisce about past super bowls. It was all a party to her. I cry for the woman she was. The woman I lost. 

I get my coffee. My donuts. I find when I get home, I don’t want them as much as I did before the tears fell. 

Walking through the front door of my home, I understand I feel, something I have noticed lately. I feel. Tears fall, and not from a place of pity for myself or cyclical suffering, but from somewhere real. 

Driving home from the store, I understand I can feel something other than what has come from a 33-year relationship (perhaps, we will get into that another time).

The year 2021— it said to me: I will be bittersweet. 

Already, it most certainly is 🌸