Heaven's Gate

In her nineties and afraid of weather and of falling if she wandered far outside her door, my mother took to strolling in the house. Around and round she’d go, stalking into corners, backtrack, then turn and speed down hallway, stop almost at doorways, skirt a table, march up to the kitchen sink and wheel to left, then swing into the bathroom, almost stumble on a carpet there. She must have walked a hundred miles or more among her furniture and family pics, mementos of her late husband. Exercising heart and limb, outwalking stroke, attack, she strode, not restless like a lion in zoo, but with a purpose and a gait, and kept her eyes on heaven’s gate.