text: My mom is old. Her vibrance gone. Bones brittle. Hair gray. Eyes glazed over from cataracts. Her skin patchworked with blood spots. And it is not cliché to say it happened overnight. Just three years ago she was getting a monthly pedicure and keeping hair appointments to cut and color her once brown hair. With her five children grown and gone, she never stayed home. From the time she woke until dinner time, she was outside roaming in her car visiting friends and shopping. She was alive and loving every minute of her new freedom that was formerly restricted from being a full-time nurse, a housewife, and a mother. Then the accident changed everything. Three years ago she stepped off a sidewalk curb and lost her balance. Her right shoulder completely shattered, and it was how she discovered she had osteoporosis. The entire shoulder had to be replaced. The surgeon picked out pieces of splintered bones and put in a round metal ball to give her about sixty percent use of her shoulder again. She suffered through the year long process and fell again, this time breaking a bone in her back and knee. For the last few years, her car has been supplanted with a recliner. The last few Christmas holidays have obviously not been the same. This one, however, will probably be the last. A few months ago I started to notice the memory problems. I visit her weekly and since the Breaking of Bones I have been spending every Saturday morning and night with her by sleeping in my old childhood room. The severity of the memory problems became more noticeable every week I returned. For the first time since I was born, my mom forgot my birthday. Birthdays are more important to no one other than a mother--at least, my mother. Birthdays were an event celebrated in my parents’ home more than Christmas. My birthday, my brother’s birthday, and my father’s birthday are all in December. My mom forgot all three. No phone calls. No cards. No cake. No celebrations. We did not remind her. We only spoke of it amongst ourselves briefly to mention that we noticed. Maybe it did not need to be broached. More than likely, we were so saddened about the Great Forgetting that none of us could bring ourselves to discuss it. Last Thursday, just four days before Christmas, my mother told me when she was a teenager that she would eat the honeycombs from real bee honey. She said it was her favorite thing to eat as a child. She and her two sisters would sit on the porch and put the comb on an English muffin or biscuits. She said she would not eat oatmeal unless she had honeycomb pieces to put in it. Sometimes she would just suck on the honeycomb before finally eating it by itself. She and her two sisters felt rich if they had it. “Honeycomb was not easy to come by in those days,” she said. “I can’t remember what it tasted like but it was the best kind of candy. I wish I could taste it again.” It is said that men have trouble listening to women. I had no trouble listening to my mom. I knew what her Christmas gift was going to be this year. I got Mom six separate quarts of honey with combs in them. I had to go to three different bee apiaries in two different states to get them. I spent no fewer than two days tracking down and purchasing honeycomb. (Apparently it is not a popular request with bee farmers.) The price was costly but would be worth it. It would be the best gift I have ever given my mom. This year will be doubly special for me because I know this will be my mom’s last Christmas. Her memory problem is exacerbating too quickly. The differences are noticeable now almost daily. But I had a secret I could not tell her for two more days until Christmas morning. Why can it not be Christmas Day right now so I can give her this gift right now! This is going to be her best Christmas. I am certain of it. I am going to drop a hint about her gift like she used to do with me as a child a few days before Christmas. Yesterday, while I was sitting on Mom’s couch with her across me in her recliner, I asked, “Mom, do you remember when you used to eat honeycombs on the porch with Pat and Dina?” She turned her head to face me with a blank stare. “Honeycombs?” She asked. “Who told you that? No, I never ate honeycombs. Those things were gross.