"He had idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis," she says. "We were watching TV and he kept saying that something was wrong, something's wrong. He couldn't say what exactly. He just felt bad. I told him to go to the doctor."
"He put it off," she says. "He thought it was the flu."
Why he finally went, it was too late. A month later he died.
The woman next to her is sympathetic. The quick descent, the sudden loss. So sorry.
She means it.
"I had a feeling," the widow says, "I had a feeling he was sick. I should have made him go."
I know what she means; I have feelings every day. My gut warns me all day long: don't eat that yogurt, don't send that email. Call your mom. Don't take that road home. Go the long way today.
Honestly, my gut instinct is as close to divine intervention as I get. Something reasonable, sensible, concerned with my well-being, and that of the ones I love, speaks to me through channels I dont fully understand. Like the woman who knew her husband was sick, I hear, not a voice really, but a revelation, a knowing that rises on the horizon of my consciousness. The light is subtle, but undeniable. I trust it.
I shouldn't. Not for the times it was wrong: I don't send the email and then he emails me, wondering why I haven't replied; I take the long way and get lost.
I shouldn't trust it because of the times it didn't speak to me at all. The times I needed a heads up or a clear direction of which way to go. Some method of deciding that was more than chance.
Do I let my angry son walk out the door?
Do I grab his arm?
Do I stand at the door and wait? He has always come home.
Or do I go after him?
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