Kissed by a Bee

I'm back!!! From holidays, that is - all tanned from the sun and pudgy from the food. I had a wonderful time with family and friends and stored away many happy memories.

Which leads me into today's post. There are some moments in my life that I will never forget. Like old photographs that I review often they stay firmly imprinted in the front of my memory box. I know I have a lifetime of moments stored up there somewhere in my brain but many are dusty photograph books that are only opened occasionally and show up when triggered by something else. While others, well, they seem to always be in the forefront. Like the time I was kissed by a bee.....

It was the summer before I started high school and my girlfriend and I were scoping out the grounds at Trenton High, getting a lay of the land as it were. Around the perimeter was this nice long row of bushes which for some reason seemed like a good place to explore. So in we went crouching and crawling, inching our way along when the next thing we know we are in the midst of bee city and they are none too pleased to have us show up. Much stinging pursued including a big kisser on my lip. It immediately began to swell up (one side only) and amused my mother to no end.

There are random moments that I still see clearly and I have no idea why. I have a very clear memory of being in front of our house in Picton sitting on my bike on a hot summer day. Gino Vanelli is playing "You Gotta Move" on a radio somewhere. I'm about 11 years old.

There are other moments so life changing you will never forget. I remember the last time I saw my sister alive. She had been fighting for her life against cancer and I had promised myself I would never cry in front of her, which I was able to keep, until the very last time. There she was, once a beautiful young woman of 25, now all misshapen and deformed from the ravages of the disease and giving me this sad, pathetically heroic smile, trying to make me feel everything was all right. I was not all right and neither was she and I cried. She passed away the next day.

I clearly remember the amazing moments of giving birth. All this pain and chaos, people yelling at me to Push! Push! And then, suddenly, there is no more pain, stillness and quiet and this precious little being in my arms, looking at me with those slate gray eyes.

Somehow all these moments, good, bad and random make up part of me, who I am and who I have been molded into. In all respects I have thus far been blessed with a wonderful life. Who knows how many more memories and moments I have waiting to be stored ahead.