I relaxed, knowing the procedure of giving up my blood was the best thing I could do. I was staying ahead of my body, which would naturally overwhelm itself with an otherwise required element. My pause was not for myself. It reflected the procedures going all around me, of using one poison to confront an otherwise even more deadly one. I have been away. Consequently, the faces have changed. Many faces I remembered have passed, including one I knew as a friend.
The checklist on the wall with my dry-marker initials took me to a place of looking back and looking forward. Life’s whispers went across time, to my weekly visits and even further. Each memory frame had a story to retell. I found myself thinking of a king looking back on his life then as I did on mine now. “I took a hard look at what’s smart and what’s stupid. What’s left to do after you’ve been king? That’s a hard act to follow. You just do what you can, and that’s it.” (Ecclesiastes 2:12)
Yesterday informs today while I hold freedom and opportunity in my hands. Life invites me to look openly, candidly, and brutally bluntly at what unfolded and how I responded. There are grand celebrations where I responded to living with purpose. There are also dark and challenging moments where my self-centric desires dominate. I have an opportunity to use each memory to increase my awareness, understand more clearly, and learn. Today is a doorway I can enter with this knowledge and the ability to choose what happens in the moment I have with wisdom and purpose.
Cleaning up my life, inside and out, takes time. When I first entered this room, I knew I was coming back. Within the week, I was back. There were familiar faces, nurses and other patients. As the excess in my blood was cleared out by the opportunities to make all things new, I saw others struggling to fight against a terrible disease. The impact on my then and now was thankfulness, compassion, and patience.
