Tick Tock
The silence is deafening on this side.
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39. It seemed so young and yet so old and always so far away.
tick tock.
I can't comprehend what it would be like to be handed a death sentence at 39.
tick tock.
But there has always been a part of me that assumed I would find out. There was no real reason to assume that. We're very different people. At 39, she was 100 pounds over weight, crippled by depression, and far older than her years.
I'm none of those things.
tick tock.
While she spent her 39th year battling a cancer diagnosis, I will spend my 39th year chasing a tiny new person.
tick tock.
Her life was ending. Mine is beginning anew.
tick tock.
Everything that is in my future was already in her past.
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The tick tock that has followed me for so many years stopped a few weeks ago. The clanging of the alarm as it went off on the morning of the beginning of my 39th year was the loudest sound I've ever not heard.
So loud.
But it has stopped.
And now I'm standing in a fog not quite sure what comes next. I never considered the possibility. I never considered the probability.
It's dark here. I'm wading through a fog so thick it muffles the sounds and conceals the light.
It's so very quiet.
The ticking and the tocking. They're gone.
I don't know what's next, but I know it's something wonderful.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Reader Comments (3)
My mother's sister, my aunt was diagnosed somewhere in her late 40's. I assumed that she was in her 50's. That is where I am now. With the long line of women in my family with breast cancer, I knew I was next. Somewhere about 6 months ago my Mom told me that I had already past the age at which my aunt was diagnosed. The clock stopped immediately. The silence was deafening. It still catches me by surprise that I am still listening for it.
We are not our mothers and their fate is not our destiny.
this post gave me chills. while i don't hear the proverbial clock, i just know i will have breast cancer like my mom, my three aunts, and my cousin. not a death sentence necessarily, but certainly won't want it. sometimes it is scary, so i try not to think about it. mostly easy, but then again, i am not yet 64.