The Request

Honesty

Photo by Rebecca Freeman on Unsplash

The request was, on the surface, simple.

The request followed a cancer diagnosis. A simple, treatable, highly beatable cancer, but cancer nonetheless.

I was driving my mom not because she was too ill to drive, but because I thought we'd grab lunch after her appointment.

She wasn't hungry.

I didn't blame her.

But I almost ran a red when she said “tell me about the happiest days of your life.”

If I gave myself a do over, I would have said “ I haven't lived them yet.”

But that would have been like going through a revolving door backwards.

I certainly thought about lying.

I've had plenty of happy moments.

But with the est suffix?

That was an easy answer, silent, in my head.

To say it out loud, to my mother, was crawling through razor wire, naked, on fire, into the mouth of a giant beetle.

And I did it.