Tunnel Vision

Often times I think about “Going back” I entertain myself by thinking “If I could go back…” and continue to fill in the blanks, wondering how the outcome would be different, how things would change further on down the road, wondering how things would pan out…if I went back and changed just a few things. Would it really matter? Would things eventually end the same?

At the end of it all, I know that its just a way of passing time. Just my way of trying to fix something that, really, cant ever be fixed. In the end, after I run myself through the proper steps of changing the past, I remind myself that I cant go back, and that most likely…is a good thing, if nothing else.

This past week, however, it has seemed that I have been taken back.

A few years ago, when I got the kids back, I lived with two other people. One of them was real close to his grandma, who instantly picked up on the kids, and filled the place that their own grandparents hadn’t. She was the grandma they didn’t have, and filled the spot very nicely. She stepped in, without over stepping, and treaded on the thin grounds I had laid.

Sunday my old roommate showed up on the door, with news…that she had cancer, and was being sent south to consult about further options. It was a shock, a blow, and pretty much a slap to the face – because while she wasnt exactly related to me, wasn’t technically close, she was someone I knew, he is someone I know, and cancer is something Im all too familiar with.

This summer I have spent some time getting to know a certain person who was up here for the summer – working the fishing boats. There isn’t anything that gets you to know someone better than standing in the rain at 2 in the morning gutting fish, which is what we did two, three times a week this summer. Last night, he showed up at the door, which was odd, considering that the fishing season has been over for a few weeks now. He showed up because his brother had just called to tell him that his wife had died while he was at work.

Naturally his brother was trying to get himself south as quickly as possible to be with him, but had no clue where to start, or what to do.

…and then this morning, at work.

Someone else I know wandered in, having just finished a funeral last night, and a grave site service this morning.

…and in the matter of a week, I have been taken back all the way through each step. Cancer. Death. Funeral.

I tell myself its fine, and it is. Im not going back, even if I wanted to I couldn’t. I tell myself that there isn’t any undoing or redoing, whats done is done. But then I get “Smart” and I search out an old post I had written a few years back.

This post, to be exact. The post where I was looking through the paper for someones obituary, and proceeded to go home…to Molly.

Today when I read it, it hit me. Everything clicked, everything came together. No, I wont be going back, but my life has a funny way of running in circles. A funny way of repeating itself. A funny way of tricking me into believing that everything is ok, and then slapping me upside the head. Two years ago, when I wrote that, death and Molly hadn’t even been thought of in the same sentence. She was a (mostly) healthy, happy girl who was growing up despite the odds being stacked against her. That post was written less than a month before death knocked on her door. It was written while she was still alive, although less than two weeks later, she would be gone.

I cant go back. No. But every so often, it seems as though Im living through the past, all over again.