“If I squinted, I could imagine Tom there, trading stories, ready to head out and help wherever help was needed”

Today, I skied, and my brother entered a care facility. Life dishes up wildly incongruent realties from time to time, too often for my taste. I told myself that I would ski for him, this strikingly beautiful day high in the Sawtooth Mountains. The lift attendant told us we had the mountain to ourselves. Yes, I thought, Mark and I and Tom. I carried him with me up the chair and down the runs. At the top of the lift, ski patrollers sat on the porch of their log hut, enjoying coffee and the warmth of the sun at 7,000 feet with no wind.

If I squinted, I could see Tom sitting there with them, trading stories, ready to head out to help wherever help was needed. He could ski any slope, in any condition. He skied as often as he possibly could, free skiing with family and friends and patrolling on mountains from Vermont to California to Oregon. He was steady and calm and experienced. I had followed him thru powder that rose over my head, both of us laughing at the joy of it all, and down slopes I never would have attempted without following his lead. We had shared more than our share of après ski beverages, telling stories that got better and better over time.

We had a family zoom call the night before my ski, siblings and children and grandchildren – all skiers or about to be skiers. Tom listened and laughed along with the rest of us. Storytelling is something we Irish have woven into the fabric of who we are and how we love each other. Dementia has taken a great deal of Tom away from us, too much to tell, and this is why the time had come for him to leave his home.

In the middle of the overtalking, which our family is very good at, and which I happen to approve of, but which is made unbearable in a virtual connection, Tom said, “I was skiing yesterday,” and he smiled his big, loving, all-encompassing smile.

I remembered his words at the end of the day, when I was feeling the loss of his wholeness. And then I knew that he had indeed been skiing yesterday, as he skied with me today. When I am not visiting him in his new home, I will find him many places, but none perhaps as vividly as on the mountains he loved, making turns, laughing, falling and getting up, and telling stories at the end of the day, rum and coke in hand.