Familiar Predicament

I scanned crowds to search for other women in my shoes, someone wearing a scarf like me, or had short hair obvious from chemo regrowth, and I’d daydream of what I would do if I did. Would I hug them? Would I just give them knowing smile? Or was that like asking a big bellied woman how pregnant she was, only to find out she wasn’t? I never once saw anyone so I’ll never know.

I compared my life to the last leaf on a tree before winter came. Those first few days after I found out I had cancer I was that last leaf flickering in the wind, barely hanging. A puff was going to make me fall. I was going inward, dormant, hunkering down for the winter. The cycle of life would set in, invisible change, and the hope was next spring I’d bloom into something new.