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FORGIVENESS
I STARE OUT the window of the airplane and see miles and miles of greenery sectioned
into perfect squares. Dozens of mysterious blue-green pools lie below, glowing at their
edges. From so high up above it, the world seems ordered and deliberate.
But I know it’s more than that. And less. It is structured and chaotic. Beautiful and
strange.
Dr. Chase was not happy with my decision to fly so soon. But anything can happen at any
time. Safety is not everything. There’s more to life than being alive.
To her credit, my mom didn’t try to stop me when I told her last night. She swallowed
all her fear and panic even though she still doesn’t fully believe that I’m not sick. Her
doctor’s brain struggles to reconcile what she’s believed for so long against the evidence
of too many other doctors, too many tests. I’m trying to put myself in her shoes, playing
games not of cause and effect, but of effect and cause. I go back, and back, and back, and I
always end up in the same place.
Love.
Love makes people crazy.
Loss of love makes people crazy.
My mother loved my father. He was the love of her life. And she loved my brother. He
was the love of her life. And she loves me. I am the love of her life.
The universe took my dad and brother away. For her it was the Big Bang in reverse—
everything that became a nothing.
I can understand that.
Almost.
I am trying to.
“When will you come back home?” she asked.
And I told her the truth. “I don’t know if this is home anymore.”
She cried then, but still she let me go, and that has to count for something.
Eventually the cloud cover grows too thick for me to see much of anything. I relax into
my seat and reread The Little Prince. And, just like every time I’ve read it before, the
meaning changes.