Index and thumb

 When you are young, you use your fingers as a method of measurement. "I am this big" as I hold my arms out wide, or I am this many years old. As you grow and get older those things to change, your unit of measurement changes to more practical methods. I am 5"5, I am this many pounds, I have this amount of money. It is easily quantified, and yet our first method of measurement is always there. Always present and it is funny when you revert back to using it. My mother is dying, I feel like at this point it goes without saying if you have been reading this far, but my measurement of that passage of time is the only thing I have left. I lift her because I am the only one besides my husband who has no trouble doing it and it takes two hands and my two legs to lift her safely. I did calisthenics with her and it took my hand, from my index finger to my thumb to wrap around her calf to lift her. Think about that for a second, my index finger and thumb touched as I grabbed the meatier part of her calf. Her wrists and arms are skeletal and require no real measurement because the smallest measurement I have on me has already been utilized on her legs. 

I feel like I am measuring all of the milestones in reverse with her... from how much she will eat and drink to how long she is awake. It's all measured in that rudimentary method of my youth. I take solace in the fact that I can measure anything at all as soon, there will be nothing more to measure. I will be left staring at my hands and wondering how I could ever measure with my index and thumb again. 

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