This Can't Happen

This cave in, this hurricane, this almond-sized explosive device found in the breast of my daughter Kelly. This can't happen. That's what I said when I heard about the lump, what I said on the phone, what I said to friends, and what I continued to say until 3AM on the morning of her surgery when for one agonizing hour my tired mind wrestled with the possibility that maybe it could happen. Tragedies happen.

But this tragedy did not happen. The surgery was quick and slick as an oil change without the efforts to upsell an air filter and winter wipers. The pathologist called before we got home to tell us that the lump was free of cancer.

The burden of worry that I wouldn't allow to happen was lightened in stages yesterday rather than in one swoosh. The sun kept getting brighter, the music of the day a little more bouncy until relaxing by the swings with the kids last night a moth fluttered by pulling the last of it into the twilight.

Whew.