Childhood

“Sunsets, like childhood, are viewed with wonder, not just because they are beautiful, but because they are fleeting.”

Childhood sculpture by Joe Sackett.  In our neighborhood for one fleeting week, then the musician helped the sculptor load the sculpture onto the trailer headed for Santa Fe Skies.

All of life is fleeting and ephemeral.  Our ephemeral existence was brought home to me on Friday when the musician went to the hospital for simple outpatient surgery that suddenly found him on life support where he remained for half a day. 

Septic Shock, the surgeon said.
Will he make it, I cried?
We can’t be sure. Stay close by.

Now I was face to face with the fleeting nature of life.  Would he live?  Would he die?  Stay close by.

Agonizing hours down the day, miraculously it seems, the doctors pulled him out of the nether world and back to the present!  The musician had no recollection of any of it.  And I guess that’s good.  He was spared the visceral heartache his family had embodied.

When he was cognizant again and saw the late hour he asked, “What happened?” 
“Welcome back,” the nurse replied.  “Today you almost died.”

Take care, dear hearts, and hold your loved ones close; tell them all things you meant to say before time moved on.