Five years and counting

Five Years

Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
Saw boys, toys, electric irons and TVs

My brain hurt like a warehouse
It had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store
Everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people
And all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people
And all the somebody people
I never thought I'd need so many people

A girl my age went off her head
Hit some tiny children
If the black hadn't a-pulled her off
I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm
Fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kiss the feet of a priest
And a queer threw up at the sight of that
I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour
Drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine
Don't think you knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained
So I felt like an actor
And I thought of Ma
and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, you're beautiful, I want you to walk
We got five years, stuck on my eyes
We got five years, what a surprise
We got five years, my brain hurts a lot
We got five years, that's all we've got

David Bowie

Today marks the five year anniversary of what I will call "the end and birth" of another one of the many lives of this cat. 

As you can see with the before and after, lucky to be here.  So many changes in the past five years, but I take much solace in the fact that so many people still comment on how young I look.   That is a choice of how we live our lives, and a throw of the genetic dice.

These are the same loaded dice that got me into this pickle.  We see our capricious fate can be.  A year after my incident, Scotty Hard had his life change in a way we could never have imagined.  My good friends Liz, Saeko, Matt, and Lenore were taken from us; the pain is still there, the memories will always be there, and the feelings of thanks for not being included in that number.  This is a club that I'm not ready to join.  In the past seven years, I lost two fathers, two sister-in-laws, and two beloved dogs.  The new math is not so kind.

And yet, I am here.  Against all odds, I am here. 

And I love life.  And those around me who keep me so young, and laughing, and living the fullest life imaginable. 

Thanks

dense