Tonight at dinner, I noticed something. My mother was hunching over her food, back slightly stooped, head bowed down and forward.

I hadn't been so frightened in a long time.

It was the hunch of elderly people. The stature of age, marked by an inability to support oneself up straight. You see it quite clearly everywhere in elders. They're hunched forward, sometimes face towards the ground, sometimes not. Everyone have seen this before and knows what I'm talking about.

I've never really recognized time's effects on my parents. On me and my sister, yes, of course. But never my parents. They are immortal to me, preserved eternally by my love and memory. 

So I was scared when I saw my mother's shoulders drawn forward, in a nearly detached manner away from her body. I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell her to sit straight, not down. I didn't though. I'm not her mother. It's the other way around. And it's ironic...I'm the hunched one.

Later, we began talking. About the fish she had cooked, about doughnuts, about this coming Tuesday, about ginger and it's health benefits. I noticed then that she had straightened up.

I'm never going to ignore her.  I love her too much to let her feel the effects of time.

I wish my father was here to be with her as well.