A life of magical thinking.

My mom was diagnosed with cancer.

Don't worry. She had surgery and everything should be fine.

Looking back on the ordeal, I realize now that I probably should have been more concerned. After all, cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide. But my mom explained the procedure with such sanguine disposition that the gravity of the situation never quite dawned on me. She even described her missed trip to Orlando to visit her brother as the universe's way of clearing her schedule for treatment.

Usually, I bite my tongue at those fatalistic, and quite often unhelpful, pronouncements my mom likes to make ["Maybe the restaurant being closed is just the universe's way of telling us that we should eat at home tonight."]. But in those vaguely terrifying hours when my mom was in surgery and the unassuaged guilt of things left unsaid crept up on me, I realized we all engage in magical thinking in our own ways.

Prior to this month I never seriously considered the prospect of losing a parent. Intellectually, I was aware of its inevitability, but it always felt like a forever distant horizon. While we all imagine ourselves to be the protagonist of our own stories, I assume nobody's self-narration accounts for premature bereavement. It is a silly and entitled lie, yet what is the alternative?

I would like to think that I could sublate this knowledge into some higher consciousness, but honestly, I am just glad everything worked out in the end this time.