Twelve years ago this month: It’s the night before the bowels (which never worked well from the start, but raged the ten years prior) are formally scheduled to be disemboweled. The surgeon and resident surgeon enter the room, which is private (quarantine) because C. difficile is an added issue. This scheduling is last minute, jumping months ahead of others — butting in line, so to speak — and the resident is put in charge. Observed by his superior, he speaks with Spanish accent in a demeanor of regret, explaining his concern in somber tones. But his patient’s expression of relief isn’t the response he seems to expect. His face darkens. Her hoped for ally turns away in a flash.
All these years later: She stills feel gratitude for his successful surgery and the healing since, but wonders, even now, the answer that would have won him over. The honest, but wrong, one: to shrug. There was always a hunger to feel mothered, but not to be a mother. Same with her mother. And her mother’s mother, whose funeral occurred a month before the first symptoms of the disease began. That this surgery would lessen the chance of becoming a mother…
…Offering space to imagine words others would rather hear.
Chart of moment, Tuesday, December 4th:
Mercury 27° 42′ Rx Scorpio trine North Node 27° 42′ Cancer 11:14 CST
Mercury Rx/North Node exact trine Chiron 27° 54′ Rx Pisces
Thursday, December 6th:
Mercury station direct 15:22 CST
Sunday, December 9th:
Chiron station direct 1:52 CST…
Images: Bethany Beach, Delaware (Charles Lytton & Kira Kaplinski)