The “lucky” break
I felt horrible. Whatever virus I’d picked up had spiraled into one hell of a sinus infection, and finally, my doctor called in a prescription for antibiotics.
Speeding down the road, I slid through the stop sign at the end of the street and turned, minus any blinker. And then, the blue lights filled my rear-view mirror.
Sighing, I pulled over and waited. In the back seat, my dogs – I now had two of them – growled softly as the policeman listed my offenses. I shushed them, then apologized and explained I was on my way to get a prescription because I was really sick.
I must have really looked it too, because I lucked out. The policeman just gave me a warning, told me to slow down, and let me go on my way.
The “contender”
I walked to the pharmacy counter in the back of Maxwell’s Drug Store, blinking in the glare of the bright lights, and asked for my prescription. From behind the counter, one of the pharmacists yelled a greeting. He came over – HG, my old boss. When I was 16, my first job was as a clerk in a local pharmacy, and HG was the owner. Here he was, after all these years, looking rested and happy. He’d sold his business, retired, and was working part-time as a substitute pharmacist here.
“So what are you doing now?” he asked loudly – he’d been hard of hearing for years.
I explained through my pounding headache that I was a Medical Technologist working in the laboratory at the local hospital.
“The lab?!” he yelled. “Why did you stop at the lab?! You’re smart! You could’ve been a doctor!”
Someone called him away at that moment, so he waved and wished me well.
It was good that they did because I had no answer for him. In fact, I choked up, without actually realizing why at that moment. I was just suddenly overcome by the intense ache in my heart at his words. “You’re smart! You could’ve been a doctor!”
I suddenly felt like Marlon Brando in that old movie lamenting his life, crying in agony, and saying, “I coulda been a contender!” I could have been the contender in life, too. But I couldn’t at that moment.
The future work
HG’s words reverberated in my head all the way home that night. And for many nights. And years. In fact, the pain of his words would only intensify over the years, right through to today. It is something I am only now realizing fully — Just how much of my future my father stole from me. I will talk more about this later. Because it is the anger and sorrow of that loss that I understand so much more now. And which I have had to grieve and work to heal from.
I will simply note, HG wasn’t being mean. He was being himself. He always wanted to see people go as far as they could in life. He, a man, an *older* man even back in 1984, felt that everyone, including women, was smart and deserved to reach for the stars. And he felt I had that capability. And yes, on one level, I did. I WAS smart. But what I couldn’t tell him was that with all the trauma and battles I was fighting, such a future was impossible at that moment. In fact, it is only now, with years of therapy and healing, that emotionally, I feel I could take such a path. But now it is too late.
It would be my future work to grieve that loss and learn to celebrate now, all that I have accomplished
But for that moment, I was still just trying to stay alive….
Soul Mosaic 
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