Winken, and Blinken, and Nod

Just got off the phone to my mother, who is in a nursing home. After "hello, how are you" there usually isn't much to say. She was devastated by my father's death three months ago. She is slipping further and further away, mentally as well as physically. For some reason, tonight she asked me if I could get her a copy of the poem, "Winken and Blinken and Nod", then proceeded to recite it, just like she did when I was 3 or 4 years old. She remembered every word. The tears were streaming down my face by the time she was finished. As they are now, thinking of it. That is what is left, now that everything else is gradually eroding, an old poem by Eugene Field that she read me every night when I was very young. It seems like she is not my mother any more. She doesn't take care of me, and I can't take care of her, though my brother, who lives closer, does as much as he can.

I would get her a copy of the poem, but by the time it reached her, she wouldn't remember asking for it. I may do it anyway.