Memories Written in Water

"It's an ancient cliche," Sophie said, "from the ancient Greek writer Heraclitis of Ephesus. He wrote that you cannot step into the same river twice and he wrote it two and half millennia ago." "Likely it wasn't a cliche then," Grace remarked.  "Ah well, there's nothing new under the sun. Thus I raise you one memory written in water and the idea that everything changes with a proverb nearly three thousand years old." "Ecclesiastes," Grace replied with a smile. "You know of course both are true." "Goes without saying." Sophie held her father's hand. It was dry and brittle with paper skin. It reminded her of leaves and twigs blown or raked into crumbling piles in the fall. His hand was brittle but solid, his mind...his mind was another story. Memories, Sophie mused, our memories are written in water. No day is the same, all our castles are made of sand and the waves of time erode them away. Hendrix wrote a song about that, she remembered, only Jimi didn't live long enough to see how very true his words were. "Da's sleeping?" Grace asked. "Yes." Sophie smiled slightly, "No way Da would let me hold his hand like he was a great big sissy if he was awake. Never met such an awkward man for touching or being touched." "Well, my dear," Grace replied with mischief, "he has his moments." "And one of them led to me. Thanks, Ma." Sophie laughed. Unlike almost everyone she knew, ideas of parent sex didn't bother her at all. Seems silly to go through life acting as if you somehow came into the world with immaculate grace and Sophie was a rare one, a dreamer with a matter-of-fact acceptance of the physicality of reality. "Do you think he'll remember me when he wakes up? It seems like memories are gobbled up by a monster moving backward through time and now he's left only with his life before Sophie. How long before Grace only swam in a river he could no longer wade into? She blinked back tears. As if reading her mind, Grace was like that, she laid her own gnarled hand that still held strength and warmth and remembering over her daughter's and husband's hand and said, "We do get to step into that river once and what a lovely swim we've had. His heart remembers -- the heart always does -- the heart is the beat and flow and rhythm of the river. And that river flows from one heart to another to another." "I remember." Sophia said and closed her eyes to set that memory in water.