There are days in early spring, after the first columbines have spread their feathery purple petals to the sun and the mares stand beyond the fence, tails swishing lazily over the backs of spindly-legged colts , when I remember God. Times when a million meadowlarks sing all at once and the sky smiles down through eyes the color of a robin’s egg, and the smell of freshly cut grass wafts intoxicatingly through the rusted metal screens on the window by my desk, curling back the curtains’ edge to reveal lacy boughs of elm, when suddenly the skin on the back of my neck draws tight and I suspect He is remembering me too.
And I hope He isn’t.
Those are the days when I remember what it was like to live. What it was like to feel and not be afraid of where those feelings might take me, or what they might cost. Or who might have to pay the price. What it is like to run toward something, rather than away from it.
It happens less often now. I smile and pretend my life is like everyone else’s. I let down my guard, forgetting that the past is a freight train barreling down a narrow tunnel toward me. In the split second before impact, I realize: This is it.
This is how a burn victim feels, holding a mirror for the first time, realizing they have become someone else while they were sleeping and that the person they used to be no longer exists.
This is what it’s like to disappear.
