Anniversary

After death comes for a loved one, there are times when remembrance cuts quick without warning. For example, when I walked into Findlay's Holiday Inn on Island this morning for breakfast, the memory of my mother and dad sitting at a window table with the view greeted me with such intensity that I cried in my coffee. Unexpected memory collision happens with cancer too. A few weeks ago I was in the Good Will store in Green Bay with Shammond. He disappeared in the aisles, then reunited with me and my cart in housewears. He held a plastic packaged Halloween costume. While he lobbied the fine points of morphing into a clone for up-coming trick-rrr-treat and planned for activity thirty plus days ahead on the calendar, my mind and emotions were transported to Halloween a year ago. I didn't have the energy to buy or make costumes for the children. Kids pieced together what they could. Shammond chose pirate. I had just enough energy to lend him a belt to hang his dagger. I remember being tired as I drove the children from one house to another through sunset into dark. I quit canvassing the neighborhood early amid their protest. Nine days after Halloween I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and told that I would have lived only two more days if the doctor hadn't connected the dots, named my disease and ambulanced me to St. Vincent Hospital for treatment. Trick or treat will never be the same.