It is early. Because of the monitor we keep in my mother's room now, I can hear...

It is early. Because of the monitor we keep in my mother's room now, I can hear every word she says to herself all night long. This morning I woke to hear, "Prague! That's where we went on that trip. Prague!" Moments later, I am thinking about Prague as I wait in line with my milk at the convenience store. The dog has bitten a hole in my jacket and it now emits tiny little feather-ish things that follow me everywhere and I am hoping that no one will notice the cloud of them that surrounds me or the fact that my hair is, at best, animalistic this morning. A woman who I remember from Mixed Chorus in high school comes up and says, "I read your book." I flinch. So far, all of these interactions have been positive, lovely and sweet, but I am still waiting for the one that will end with me bound and gagged and held prisoner in the trunk of a vehicle. Because I have trouble taking in the positive.

"It says in the book how much your mother likes strawberries," Anita Dunkle tells me. "I remember when we were on the committee at the country club together and she loved my strawberry cake. I wanted to bring one by this afternoon." Standing there, amidst my swirling feathers, I was so touched. Yesterday, there was the neighbor who made the red velvet cake (which I have already eaten half of) and the homemade bread. There was the German chocolate cake and the cocoanut cake, too. There was the woman who says she "works gentle" who wants to give my mother a manicure. There were the girls from her salon in Columbia who did her hair and make-up before the reading a week ago and then closed the shop and came along. There was David Jones who brought me a pair of red suspenders last Sunday because he thought my pants were going to fall down at a public appearance. There was the high school basketball star who I had a terrible crush on and wanted for my big brother when I was six who appeared out of nowhere at a reading and made me want a big brother again. There are all the letters from people who want to know how my mother is doing and who want to tell me about how their mothers are doing. There was the kid who wrote about his parents, who he has run away from, who sent him to conversion therapy where every day he was called "faggot demon." There was the woman whose eighty year-old gay brother finished the book and broke down sobbing. There has been much generosity, and beauty, but also now and again, the reminder that so many out there are lonely with no one and that too many among us have been, in this life, so terribly hurt.