Fixed Time

Doctor and DeLorean, Wells and Bradbury.
We live to create magic and wonder.
So how can I not wonder and wish for second chances?
How can I not rewrite our story?

Thanksgiving, 2018.
“This isn’t your normal back pain.”
How to make you believe your panicked husband from the future?
“Why don’t I come with you to the doctor?”
Push him to look past chronic pain and degenerative disk disease.
Just one test.
Just one tube of blood, drowning in white.

Would one more month give the butterfly time to flap its wings?

December 2018
“The password is ‘Large B-cell Lymphoma of Germinal Center Cell Type, Non-Burkitt’s Type. Double Hit Type.'”
We have to be more aggressive than the enemy.
But who would believe me
as I sit by your bed and wait for you to return from your cursed sleep?
Test after test, every minute waiting, wasted.

The ER nurse said she’d never seen a WBC so high.
You were always the overachiever.

Were we too late before we even started?

August 2019
“Let’s go for another walk in the wheelchair.”
“Why don’t we visit a little longer?”
“Can I read you one more story?”

Was the ending pre-written?
If I can’t fix the destination, can I rewrite the journey?

Work less.
Travel more.
Hawaiian beaches and Alaskan glaciers and faithful geysers and lands of imagination.
The Eiffel Tower and the Australian reefs.
Someday can be today.

Fight less. Forgive more.
Use the lessons of the future to rewrite each chapter.
October 2003...1995…1988…

All the while, knowing a real monster waits at the end of this book.

The end of your book.

Every night, rereading each scene.
Reliving each moment.
The blank emptiness of the final pages.

If I were a better writer…
A better husband…
A better friend…

I’ll carry your story in mine, in every chapter to come.