I Remember a Day
I remember a day when there was too much light for my darkness to bear and I closed my eyes to see who I was and where. Only after the sun goes down and the blazing sky dims to dusk, may the stars, one by one, emerge to make their jeweled points and display what depths of night hold the Milky Way in loving embrace.The Thing Is
Sooner or later, and I hope it’s just later enough, it will all come down to a moment like none other. Maybe the great mystery will arrive unannounced, like that day in the hospital when, sometime between the contrast agent drink, the radioactive marker injection, the bone and cat scans, I stood in a bathroom, passed my hand back and forth in front of the motion-activated towel dispenser, and. Nothing happened. Did I still exist? The old guy in the mirror seemed to wonder the same thing. The thing is, I know it will take my breath away. And at that moment I want to be able to wish it so. The thing is, there is no way to rehearse that moment. Are we rehearsing now? Are these my lines? I long to feel blessed by this grief. To be lifted up by what pulls me down. To know that somewhere the sun shines all the long night and that all day, behind the sky’s gray scrim, the stars go on spinning their ancient stories.Richard Ewald, 64, is a prostate cancer survivor who lives in Westminster West, Vermont, with his wife, Gaelen.
