R. E. T. (Random Emotion Triggers)

There are days where she cannot believe that death is a possibility. There is so much work to be done. Lessons to plan, menus, pajamas to fold, novels to read, three sons to feed. How is it possible that she must contemplate death while cooking rice for dinner, or walking the dogs along the tall corridor of trees? No one mentioned that the fear still could catch her unaware, with tears at unexpected moments, on the way home from the video shop, or peeling carrots, or combing her now shoulder-length hair. This time, a weekend movie set in space. Each individual made in duplicate, multiples. Memory transfered from the broken body to the whole. She holds her husband's hand, remembers how many times he's been the link that held her in this world, held her near to sanity when letting go, when ending the effort began to seem a viable option. And other times too, at football games, at the orchestra, as they held their sons in the moments after birth. Tonight she looks away, blinking, waiting for the fear to pass and the moment to turn to gratitude for another day alive, for another moment to watch and to be a part of it all.