PALAVRAS ESTÚPIDAS 158

The Gift

She doesn't see things coming anymore. Nothing. Her once finelly tuned inner antennas seemed to have reached the end. Caput. No more power. No more batteries.

It was a gift that grew slowly, but undeniably, throughout her life. She couldn't say that she was very happy about it. It was surprinsing, strange, frightening, sometimes. Especially when bad things were sensed. It started very quietly around her late teens and was reaching its height at her late thirties. When, suddenly, it stopped.

Because the cancer came. The cancer was not felt. It was the one thing never caught by the antennas. She remembers long before the cancer, sensing that she would have cancer. And that was as far as her sensing would go. So sometimes she feared she would die from it, because she couldn't sense anything else after that.

Now she knows that she sensed a "death", not a real one, but a metaphorical death. She did die, her old self anyway, a part of it. And she was reborn. The cancer did it.

The cancer was one of the best things that ever happened to her. She knows people are quite shocked when she says this. How can a cancer be one of the best things in one's life?, they ask, bewildered.

It's very simple:

1. It didn't kill her, literally. If it had, it would not have been a good thing, obviously.

2. It made her change her mind about life and death. She used to want to die every other day. When it came, she found out she didn't really want that to happen.

3. It made her a little bit more fearless. Before the cancer, she said "no" a lot more times because she was frightened of everything. After the cancer she's still frightened, but she says "yes", inspite of it.

4. It made her realize life's too short, so you better enjoy it while you can.

5. It made her discover that life, inspite of everything, is beautiful. The alternative is a dark void of emptiness she does not want to tread so soon.

6. It stopped the sensing.

She doesn't guess things anymore. She has no idea of what is going to happen. It's a relief, actually. It can be very unsettling to know something is going to happen, but having no idea what it is. Only if it's good or bad.

She wants to live, not to be a fortune teller.