Memories

I remember being nine or ten years old, on my hands and knees, crawling up the stairs to get to the kitchen, where my mom was cooking dinner.

I remember calling out for my mom, but the words lost their form and their letters fell into a heap on the staircase.

I remember my mom sitting on the kitchen floor with me, breaking graham crackers into smaller bites and putting them in my mouth, dinner burning in pans on the stove.  I remember my mom’s eyes being very wide but she wasn’t crying.  I remember a glass of juice.  I remember it was hard to chew because I was crying but I wasn’t sure why, and then there’s a sharp edit in my memory, where I don’t have any recollection of what happened next.

As quickly as it came, the low blood sugar passed.  I don’t remember what caused it.  I don’t remember recovering.  I don’t remember what my face looked like, or how empty my eyes must have been, or what I sounded like as I called for my mom.  I don’t remember thinking about it for days afterwards.  I don’t remember feeling affected by it for more than those few minutes.

I think about my mother,
cleaning up the cracker crumbs and placing the juice glass in the sink,
salvaging what was left of the dinner she was cooking,
trying to forget.

You might also like:

Looking Back: Lows in Public. If a BG Falls in the Forest, Does it Make a Sound? What A Low Blood Sugar Feels Like. Sparkly, Like Her Shoes.