my romantic tryst with cancer

The weather is a willing muse, and the warm drizzle that touched my face on my slow walk home, felt like a treasured hand I'd always known, and always missed, stroking my face, gently, sometimes in little gusts, teasing, yet present. What is love? Is it the touch of skin on your skin as you close your eyes and sink your being into the scent and salt and hair and texture, or is it what you feel after that hand no longer rests on your face? Does love need another? Do I love you because I miss you? Or is it [love] a question, and do we delude ourselves imagining it to be an answer... The rain's been my companion at times like these, on such warm, dark and lovely nights. Ephemeral, yet tactile, fleeting yet committed. If it all ended tonight, I wouldn't mind. I heard the trees rustle, playing with the rain. They breathe, and I did. Long, deep breaths. Life is about holding your head up high- not to be brave, but to be alive. It is about feeling what you feel. I wondere...

He stands on the railway platform where we've stopped en route to Toronto, his dirty blonde hair blowing on his thinning head. A child not yet two propped in the crook of one arm, and another, a year older perhaps, holding onto his free hand. His bare legs move restlessly in his sandals, telling strangers more than he might care to share. As the clock ticks, his face fills with worry. The children, who came in excitement to meet someone, have now directed that enthusiasm to the train. He scans the horizon several times over. It's only been minutes, but the sky seems to have darkened. The train begins to move on. They just stand there. Mother had decided she wasn't coming back home after all.