At an intellectual level, I know that the future doesn’t exist. That doesn’t keep me from occasionally dwelling there, even feeling/sensing some quiet fall afternoon out in the backyard. At any given moment the future can be palpable, a companion during periods of contentment.
So, one can imagine how I felt a week ago today as I sat in a bleak waiting room on the surgical floor deep in the bowels of a heart hospital. My wife was out of sight. I wasn’t even certain which hallway they had wheeled her down. One thing I was sure of, however, my future was on hold. That empty, unpredictable aspect of time which slowly rolls out before me as my personal red carpet of perceived entitlement appeared to be severed, to have evaporated.
What I was confronting, as I was soon to find out, was my imagination. I didn’t really become frightened and lost until the doctor told me what happened back in that cold room filled with monstrous machinery. As he spoke, all I could do was nod while my eyes slowly filled with tears.
It’s when she had to return to that very same room 36 hours later that I nearly came unwrapped. You see, I now thought I knew what was going on beyond those double doors past the coffee machine. I was pretty sure I knew enough to be scared out of my wits. If she had almost been lost before, what now? What was going on during this rushed evening trip back downstairs?
That odd feeling of having the door to the future swing shut during my prior visit to the waiting area was nothing but my ignorant imaginings. Now I had sufficient facts and knowledge to have grave concerns and forebodings. Now the future didn’t even exist in its absence. I sat holding my daughter’s hand in silence.
The doctor came in. I’m dreaming once again about quiet fall afternoons.
In a dim light... 