I helped an elderly friend pack up from Christmas. Her array of ornaments included nutcrackers, snowmen, reindeer, and angels. I nestled them back into their boxes, and set them in the trunk, ready for a stronger person to take to the basement. 

 

Probably many of them are from when her children were small, collected from garage sales, and January sales. I could picture them going back and forth from cellar to tree fifty times. 

 

Would this be the last trip? She is in her nineties, and says that her memory is slipping noticeably. It can be hard to articulate the absence of knowing, but it distresses her all the same. She wanted a pad, which I looked for, and when we played Scrabble she looked up a word only to forget it before she could gather the tiles to spell it. 

 

I tried to name those things she has clung tightly to, like the love of her family. No one could rob her of those, even when their names escape her. 

 

We cannot be sure if her body will carry her though one more December. But I believe she will be surprised by the joy she unpacks when it is her turn to celebrate with her husband again.