Here we all are. . .

There are moments when the fabric of your Universe tears, and you stand, open-mouthed, disbelieving.  The moment before, you were skimming along with your list in hand, measuring your day, one checkmark at a time.  Then suddenly - no, with sharper edges than suddenly - there is a hole, gaping, yawning open, speaking in its own indecipherable language.  Nothing is as it was.

I came around the corner, my own street, that same curve I have come around many many times, still fastening my seatbelt. I was on my way to a meeting, a planning meeting actually, planning for the future.  Of course, that is what one does, one plans for the future.  Something different, to the left:  a car teetering on the fence, upside down.  A body in the soft pasture grass, another man standing, rubbing his head.  Two other cars had already stopped. A man on his cell phone, another administering to the man on the ground.  I had no cell phone, nor medical expertise. I drove on, eerily, warily, listening intently for the sound of emergency vehicles.

I watched as I passed car after car on the main road.  How could they not know this had happened? When a thread of the tapestry is pulled so violently, why are we not all instantly aware?

I stopped at the Volunteer Fire Department to make sure they knew.  Yes, another group was on its way, it turned out, but it seemed so slow.  This event, which had happened in an instant, was evidently taking place in a vat of molasses.

I went on to the meeting, a bit shakily.  There we worked on scenarios for seven years out, ten years out, what needed to be done.  At one point, I stopped, told a version of this story, and then other stories were told, of those moments, those cosmic potholes. Then we went on, shaking our heads, planning for this phantom, this future.

The next day,  I got the email.  One of the dearest women in the world had just met with her oncologist.  The cancer is back and has settled in, this time with custom coordinated drapes and bedcovers.  After having both breasts removed and being in remission for fourteen years, this dear dear woman got the news.  She and her dear dear partner got the news:  it is back, it is in her bones.  The Universe rents open.  Please God. . .please.

The week before, a dear dear long-time friend went shopping, a bit bewildered, buying prostheses wrapped in silky camisoles.  Her cancer is back as well, and soon there will be no breast, where her babies suckled, long long ago.

I am just home from a trip over the mountains, a chocolate cake perched precariously, celebrating my tottery mother's 88th birthday, her pile of prescriptions on the kitchen counter.  It was at this same counter that my father stood, Memorial Day weekend, 2003, and then suddenly, was on the floor, his hip broken, which led to the hospital, which led to pneumonia, two more hospitals and the ventilator, and two months later, we were at the church, receiving.

It's fine to sit, early in the morning and meditate and feel suffused with the fullness of life.  It is fine to nod our heads, yes oh yes, this life is temporary, this body is but a temple, we are all animated by the One. Yes oh yes.  All that is true. . .and I honor that.

But right now, right now this minute, I am so pissed off about this temporary shit.  I don't want my dear dear friends to have to go through this again.  I don't want them, or anyone else, to feel the physical pain, the fear, the anguish of it.  I don't want it for them, and if I'm honest, I don't want to feel this either. Right now, right this minute, I mightily protest this temporary shit.  I shake my fists at the gods.  I don't want to lose them. I don't want to lose them.

I just don't want to lose you, any of you. . .any of you.