Reprised | Excerpt 1: Intro

I think this is my first memory of automatic sliding doors. 

There were two sets, and once we walked past both we stood in the entrance of the hospital. We probably stood there only for a few seconds, but I remember it feeling like minutes.

I also remember a sense of confusion because I wasn't able to understand exactly what was happening. I must have been 4 or 5 years old at the time. I held my dad's hand and stood by his side, clueless.

When I think about that day I picture it like a children's book I used to read. The illustrations didn't show the adults faces because they were so much taller than the kids, and the picture got cut off right around the grownups midriff.

That's exactly how I imagine it being when I try to recall what things were like that day. People walking around with half-bodies, because I don't remember anything above waist height. I don't know why I didn't just look up.

That whole memory feels a little blurry. I don't think I fully grasped the idea of it being real because even now it feels dream like.

I remember hearing a rush of noise spilling towards our direction. It quickly gained speed and volume as it drew closer. It felt something like a subway train approaching the platform. The chaos gained momentum and I saw a cluster of people hovering around and speeding down the corridor with a stretcher. It pushed towards, and then blew right past us.

That was my moment of realization. That was when I understood that this was absolutely real and happening right in front of me, because when they rushed the stretcher past us I remember seeing her eyes fighting to stay open. That scene felt like it was taken out of a movie. She was brought through in the blink of an eye, but the moment she went right past us felt like it happened in super slow motion. She was covered with white sheets and they were covered in blood.

It feels surreal reflecting on the memory right now; I can only imagine how unbelievable it must have felt in that instance. The last thing I remember about that day is her being rolled away and someone telling my dad and I to sit in the waiting room. I don't remember anything that happened after that. Not that day, not when she was released from the hospital, none of the events that followed.

I do have a faint memory of being home with my dad when the phone rang before this all happened. Someone called to say that my mom had been in an accident. I'm not sure if it was the police, the hospital or a relative. It's as if that call and us standing in front of the hospital doors were directly subsequent events. As if there are no points in time that existed between those two. Like we teleported from one setting to the next.

I don't remember much from that era of my life, I was still pretty young, so it came as a surprise when I randomly recalled that day. That memory had been tucked away in my head somewhere and over the years layers upon layers of other thoughts had been piled over top. The only reason it resurfaced now is this déjà vu feeling I got when my mom was being rolled out on the stretcher today. About a quarter century later, but a part of me still felt just as helpless and bewildered.