i took a walk one day
with hundreds of others
footsteps echoing over roads
laid down by the ones
we were now walking for.
of course,
they remember
none of it.

back at the fairgrounds
children run and shriek,
adults hug and hold warm coffee,
and the grandparents
wheel around,
faces contorted in confusion.

i think of my grandmother-
how she used to tell a story
long ago, in much bigger world
about a man swallowing a fork
while cooking fish-
she told it, almost mechanically,
a broken CD,
on repeat.

and I can’t help but wonder now
if all those things
are just symptoms
and if they are
if I ever knew my grandmother
at all.

if every memory I have is
foreshadowing the inevitable.

if I could have predicted
sitting on the tall tall couch
watching Russian cartoons,
that one day,
my grandmother
would have no memory
not even of me,
I do not know
what I would have done.

Alzheimer's
is a harsh, harsh word.
harsher to three year old ears.
but here-
and this walk-
in this life-
we are all united.

today,
we all are purple warriors.