Monday, May 18, 2015

The Ides of May

My sister and I had one of those precious times today where the collective experiences of our lives were reviewed...at least the ones we remember given our ripe old ages of 68 and 66. 

For example, we spent the first five years of our lives together in a shared bedroom. Yet, we only remember that her bed was by the door and my bed was by the window (and the time I stabbed her in the knee with a pencil, imprinting a lead pencil-point tatoo still plainly visible 6 plus decades later).

Why do we remember that we don't remember anything from that era?

As we mused on this shared repression of memory, my subconscious threw me a bone, perhaps to prove that senility had not yet set in. Four years ago - during the last week in May - my entire immune system collapsed under the weight of chemotherapy. Nine blood transfusions later in an isolation room at the hospital, I turned a corner and was granted a Life sentence by early June.

During the exact same time period one year ago, my husband learned of his potential death sentence. In early June it became clear that he would have no reprieve.

The symmetry of these dates, mirroring each other three years apart, seems uncanny. Nonetheless, it explains just a little bit more why a certain funk, an unwanted dread, has haunted my heart these past weeks.

Knowledge shines a light into the dark places of the soul. With this retrieved factoid-nugget from deep mind strata, an "ah-ha" moment was born.

Exhumed dead thoughts and fears are set free to vanish into thin air. Halleluyah!




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