When you get a bit older,

it’s all about marbles.

Will they be kept or lost.

During her last five years,

it was my mother’s greatest fear.

Her sisters lost theirs,

suffered from dementia.

One couldn’t remember her daughter.

The other was unmarried,

and could remember her own childhood,

but not what she’d had for breakfast,

or if she’d had breakfast.

Mum was terrified

that she’d be the same.

She needn’t have worried.

She kept her marbles

firmly within her grasp.

Sharp as a tack,

right up to when she slipped away.

It was her body’s fight that she lost.

My turn now.

My body’s starting to fail,

but I think I’ve still got all my marbles.

Or at least most of them.

Haven’t I?