By Moira Keating

She realized she had become a bitter old woman at 3:30 p.m. on July 11. It was precisely at this moment that she knew she was a dried-up curmudgeon, a dusty relic, a bag of brittle bones disguised by skin. Her recent diagnoses -of chronic dry eye and acute sinusitis- due, of course, to her dried-up nasal passages only confirmed this revelation.

From her front door, she watched her son’s vibrant, sweet, innocent, young girlfriend delicately extract from the hatchback of her equally vibrant sports car an enormous, larger than life, bouquet of birthday balloons with a magnificent, glistening, blue 20 surrounded by a constellation of silver stars. (Twenty years, she thought, how did that happen?) And with a smile that lit up her face, the brilliant blonde ran toward him, giggling all the way with the larger-than-life balloons billowing behind her in the breeze. When she landed in his arms with hugs and kisses… giggling “Happy birthdays” floated into the bright summer sky. 

She watched the moment unfold in what seemed like a painfully slow Hallmark movie. An unrecognizable, guttural “Ugh” escaped her lips.  And with that… she turned away. 

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Moira Keating is an Associate Professor of English in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at New England Institute of Technology. She is currently working towards a Certificate of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University. “Dissecting Declan,” Moira’s poem about her middle son, was recently published in The Human Touch.