I learned how to iron the spring of my 5th grade year. I was at home in quarantine after my kidney transplant. To fight the boredom, my mother taught me to iron my fathers work shirts and for a quarter a shirt. I ironed one day a week as I watched Days of our Lives and Bonanza or the Price is Right. At the time I could tell you the line-up just like I could tell you the next John Denver song on the tape. I became so good that my aunt hired me to iron, even her jeans, which I found funny, so I spent my afternoons, ironing, watching the iron glide more like a gladiator than a ballerina over the shirts, jean, and handkerchiefs. Yes, ironing!
Today I ironed, and thought, thought about how my life has been in those 27 years. I have been to high school, college, graduated school, lived in the best place San Diego; a paradise; and some not so nice places College Station; flat and oil wells, got married, adopted a little girl from Russia, and traveled to Paris. Yes, in 27 years I have been lucky because my kidney transplant put me on a track for a normal life. Pop a pill and I was normal. No one would know the difference and most people don't. But now it is coming crashing down on me, and I think of all the things I haven't done. I thought I would be a well-known author, traveled the world, seizing the moment. Instead, I look at all the houses I have had to say "goodbye" too; I look to all the friends that I had to say "goodbye" too; the doctors; the dreams. Yes, when the doctor called me and said I should have a work-up for a new transplant, my mind went to the dreams that never happened, the a little girl that is just learning to navigate the world, the dreams of settling down. Oh it is hard to say "goodbye," especially to good health. I should go and iron.
