Puddle and Leafs on the roof

"Man's real possession is his memory.  In nothing else is he rich.  In nothing else is he poor."

~ Alexander Smith

I was gazing out the window between classes. It is a moment between one group of learners and the next.  The staff and I had been chatting about communication in the face of a dementing illness.  From the window I could see wet leafs piled on the roof below.  It reminded me of the subject that so recently stimulated discussion...memory and and the mind struggling with clots of 'plagues and tangles'...of the frustration of the adult who knows she has something to say and can't find the word.  The reflection of the word ~ the memory of what she knows still a shadow in her mind, but she is unable to breech the mass of protein plague to let her care givers know what she needs or wants.   I am reminded that to think in abstraction is a gift of health.  To discuss 'communication' with a classroom full of people who want to understand is also a grace of health.  That I can look out the window and discern that it is a rainy wet day and that there is a puddle on the roof and leafs are piling up is a blessing of health.  It is all so simple and so complicated ~ at the same time.  It is moment when I feel the brush of the eternal.