...in the middle of the night, I come to consciousness sharp. My body startles like birds buckshotted from branches. I'm in the dark, husband with parted lips by my side.
And, I'm scared. I fear death. I've almost died more times at 34 than most people can boast throughout a lifetime. I've had cancer twice. Will this be what ends me?
I think of my last conversations. Did I tell my husband he is my all? Did my mom and I say anything meaningful to each other? Will my sister know what a privilege it was to be her sidekick? What did I say, and did it convey my love and gratitude correctly?
I tell myself I'm still alive. Still here now. This moment of anxiety and dread sponsored by a beating heart. No one is promised anything else. It's the same promise I was given before cancer: You're alive this instant... congratulations!
Minutes tick by.
I think of everything I want for everyone I love. I hold them in my heart and pray for them. They are my legacy to this world—everything good I've ever done they helped shape a thousand ways. I hope they can say the same of me.
Then, there are my favorite memories I keep like a mix-tape: My first kiss at the airport the day after Christmas, singing to Kitty Wells with my mom, shooting bow and arrow in the barn, family camping trips, the walk of a thousand fireflies. More things, each something beautiful and irreplaceable. I focus my mind inside a moment that made me feel most whole or moved me.
By the time I fall asleep again, I'm smiling.
Maybe, by the time my life ends, there will be more mix-tape memories. Maybe there will be more people I hold so close they smudge the glass of my soul. Maybe fear is a partition my dreams exist beyond, should I choose to seek them.
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