Memory and Reason

It's funny what your brain will conjure up in the wee hours of the morning when you should be sound asleep. It's 5 am and I might as well call it 6:30 because I'm not going back to sleep.

There so much about college that has drifted off into the recesses of my brain but for whatever reason, this sticks out.  In college I worked in an office in downtown Athens. I was 21 or 22 and working part time. I worked for a small business - a sole proprietor with about 5 other full time employees.  That job taught me a lot about professionalism and work ethics. And resilience when life throws a monkey wrench into your well functioning life. The business owner was about 35 with one-year old twin boys. I got to know his wife who was diagnosed with colon cancer that year.

I remember vividly the conversation when he told his small office staff. He talked briefly about their plan for her care - help from family, chemotherapy, surgery, etc. Then he shifted gears to the practical - the business had to keep going. It provided their sole source of income, health insurance, and jobs for five people. He told us that he would do what he needed to do for her, but he also had to be present at work.  In a way, that was for her too. It wouldn't help if their income stream dried up while she was sick.

I remember seeing her during treatment. Much like me she didn't lose her hair but opted for a low maintenance short cut.  I remember baby sitting the boys when she was sick and her family wasn't available to help.

I think about all this in the early morning darkness, and I wonder about her. I moved from Athens nearly 20 years ago. But alas, there is Facebook. I looked her up. There she is smiling with her husband and two grown boys. It made me smile to see them all together smiling back at me from my iPad. She is a 20-year survivor. She has been able to see her kids grow up. It gives me hope that I'll be there in 10+ years with my smiling grown up kid.