an existential keekah

I stood in the doorway of the mall shuttle as I do every morning on my way to work.  Glancing out the window of the moving bus, watching but not really watching the people outside moving in their own morning rituals.  Most days I see the same folks walking steadily by, noticing but not really noticing others around them just like me. 

Then I notice him out of the corner of my eye.  I notice his bald head first, the glint from the morning’s rays reflecting off his head.  My mind then notices the goatee on his face and then the slight limp to his walk.  All this occurs in a fraction of second and my mind processes this information and the image hits on a memory stored within and recognition sets in.  My heart leaps a little as the rest of me catches up with my mind, which has been saying, look he’s here! look at him – it’s him…LOOK!

My head turns slowly in disbelief as my heart continues to beat harder and a gasp escapes softly from my parting lips.  My eyes widen and start to search for the man I saw on the street, the man whose image caught my attention, the man who looks so much like my deceased brother.  For a moment, my mind believes it really is him and my heart follows suit, joyously celebrating the miraculous recovery of my brother.

Until my eyes see it’s not my brother.  Until my mind realizes it miscalculated.  Until my heart recognizes the truth… my brother is gone.  This man is just a man who resembles my departed sibling.

My heart skips a beat and aches just slightly, as my mind moves on with other matters that concern my day, such as what street we are at in the bus line. 

I remember experiencing this phenomenom when my parents passed on… remember those tiny glimpses, those instant recognitions, the feeling of joy, relief… and the feeling of disappointment and acceptance when it turned out not to be true.  In time, I learned to enjoy those moments of recognition, to look at it as moments remembering those who passed on.

But for this moment, the ache remained for most of the morning, a lingering reminder of loss and death.