I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

We forget so many details of our life. Weeks and months where events, moments, banal and meaningful, blur and then dissipate. And then there are the snippets that live on, forever sharp and alive, always there, waiting to be replayed.

Children do a thing. They watch their parents in a way others can’t, at close range, unnoticed, day after day. Keen observers, they know a parent’s moods, know the meaning of a prolonged sigh, can decipher a clenched jaw, a change in intonation.

“The script is unfinished. But we believe the story we’ve been telling ourselves about who we are and where our life leads. The story isn’t written yet. Your life. You know?”

“You have a wound,” she said. “If it was a cut, you’d have put Neosporin on it, a Band-Aid. But you did nothing and so it festers. You and me and a billion others. We walk around with these deep wounds that alter how we think and what we say, the relationships we have, who we trust, the decisions we make. That keep us from really living.”

I see a red cardinal from time to time, out the back window, on the old ash tree, occasionally hopping onto the back deck. They are hard not to notice. Their color, their particular beauty. I did a search online and came across an interesting story. Apparently red cardinals can be spiritual messengers. The word cardinal comes from the Latin word cardo, meaning hinge or axis. Like a door’s hinge, the cardinal is a kind of doorway between Earth and the spirit world, the story said. There are, depending upon how late you are willing to stay up and how much you want to read and how much you miss your friend, many myths around the cardinal having to do with renewal and good health. They are, say some, a visit from the other side.