Reflections

The Sighting

• By fannieb
• July 25, 2015
• No Comments

As I turned around on the foot worn trail I caught a glimpse of her and I was struck by a sudden inability to breathe. She was as I remembered her as a high school student -thin, nimble, hopeful. Although 30 years had passed since, she seemed more youthful and alive than in the mid-eighties. Her spark was that of someone who had just begun to live, who had just learned of the beauty of this thing called life. So as not to make her feel uncomfortable, I reluctantly turned away after only an instant and continued on the path. I walked through the patch of woods separating the subdivision from the strip mall and I knew that she was gone or that I was.

But that momentary image of her was worth every bit of my journey to return. My last memory of her was five years earlier as I was dying, though I hadn’t resigned myself to my fate of having only six days left to live. She hugged and kissed me goodbye as I took a break from my physical therapy. As she walked away she looked back to get one last glance at her father, withered to the bone from the cancer. I was raising my right arm extending it overhead as the therapist had instructed and I saw the tears streaming down her face. Though I knew it would do no good I told her not to cry. Her tears had been evidence of my worsening condition, of my mortality, and of the fact that my last promise to my little girl would go unkept. I wouldn’t be returning home and she wouldn’t get to visit me there, then, as I had promised her.

Photo Credit: pchristinab