I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

After raising their children, she worked to turn the unused Brooklyn Piers into public playgrounds, tapping wealthy friends. A life, in other words, rich and full, dinner parties and beach vacations, nights up with sick children, days shopping for dinner.

There is a feeling in a city where you are connected whether you like it or not.

You change. How can you not? Jen with paint colors for the baby’s room and furniture and clothes. Single-minded, preparing, a primal thing, the only thing, a mother.

A smart person once told me to sit with it. To stay in the pain.”

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.

“I read this thing. I think it was the ancient Egyptians. They believed you died twice. First when you died, and second when people stopped saying your name.

The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”

How many days do you experience something for the first time?

Lives are changed by seemingly unconnected, random decisions that change everything.