Life is so funny.
All my life mom has told me the story of how when she was a new grad Occupational Therapist working at the University of Kansas Hospital, her and her coworkers would always go across the street to a little dive bar to dance and have a few drinks after work. On one occasion, one of her friends asked her to dance, she accepted, her knee went out, she ripped the guy’s shirt clear off, and later found out she had torn the meniscus in her knee. She was mortified. She always laughs when she finishes the story explaining that she had to buy and wrap her friend a new shirt to replace the one she accidentally destroyed.
I bet she would have never dreamed that over 40 years after she ripped her friend’s shirt, her daughter would be sitting in her ICU room while she battled cancer/recovery, looking down on that little dive bar on the corner of the street. Eventually, time catches up to all of us.
When we got to the UKMC campus she gave us the tour, where she used to work, told us stories about the psych department and almost getting stabbed with scissors by one of her patients (true story!), all the while her new memories here would be made fighting for her life. Everyday I look at that dive bar on the corner and picture her in the 70s, fresh out of college, before I was ever a thought, before she met my dad, before she was diagnosed with cancer.
When this is all over, I’m going to take her back to that bar. Her possibly last memory of this place is going to be a happy one, washed down with Wild Turkey, surrounded by the people she loves- just like all the times she had there decades before (minus the knee thing 💁🏼♀️).
Yes, life is a funny thing, isn’t it?
Webster's World 