Thrown Back

Twenty years ago today, the tumor growing in my skull vanished and I was thrown back in the streets like Lazarus. Today the rain is a fine mist and I open my face for a long time, till I remember again that it is skin receiving water from the sky. After twenty times around the sun, all I can say is perhaps falling in love with the world is the bravest thing we can do. I only know that my heart grows stronger every year, a muscle gaining each time I love. This beautiful rush of life is all we have and still we struggle to get out of it. Like fish we labor to make it to the sand as if that shore were Heaven. And if thrown back, we can grow bitter when we think we’ve failed but humble when we can accept that waking tomorrow in all of this is being saved.