An unending whirlpool of frenzy. She is sitting on the floor, her back leaning against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of her. Her short stature and a plump body make her look like an oversized baby. Or rather a toddler.

So easily broken, so inexperienced in the ways of life, she is eager to explore the world. But the grown up world with its worries and manic pace is not for her. She is too fragile to step into it without falling.

And fall she does. She makes a few steps and then goes down again, struggling as she attempts to navigate the obstacles of this sink or swim reality.

Thankfully, she can talk. Moving her arms back and forth, she tells me everything that has been happening to her during the week. Good and bad. Mostly bad: regret and fear; struggle and frustration; longing and disappointment.

She can talk up a storm. She chatters so much that it would make a dead person twitch in his grave. Sometimes her light-year-speed conversation is too much for me to handle and I want to run away.

But I don’t run. I listen.  As she waves her arms in the air again and as her mouth curls to express yet another triad of frustration, my heart sinks. So weak, so unprotected.

I want to help her, to lead her through the maze of life, but I can’t. She is not my responsibility. She never has been.

And yet I can’t help but stretch out my hand to support her weak arms as she attempts to make another step.

I sigh. This plump bundle of wrinkled flesh… A child trapped in adult body… My mother.