Sense and sensibility

If someone took away your five senses what would you have left. How would you see, hear, touch, smell, taste?

I thought about this yesterday as I was walking to the park and talking to Stevie. I said, "Stevie it's Mom, can you hear me?" then I thought of course she can't hear me she doesn't have ears. She can't see me walking in the park, she can't touch me...Instead of crying I decided to challenge myself and try to figure out what she can do now, now that she does not have these physical senses.

If I could not see anymore I could remember what I saw. I could replace that with hearing. If I could no longer hear, I could listen with my hands to vibrations, if I could not touch something I could smell it...

I wasn't getting anywhere so I sat down on a bench at the bend in the walkway halfway to the otherside of the park. This is where Mathews Russian grandparents come everday to walk, read and sometimes sleep. It felt like I was invading thier space even though they were not there.

I closed my eyes, relaxed and slowly shut myself down. If I had no physical senses what would I have...There would no longer be physical pain or joy, there would no longer be the sound of birds, the smell of fried onions coming from someones open window, the taste of ice cream, the soft touch of a baby, the sky would no longer be blue.

What I would have is a being and a knowing that all these things exist, someplace else. I would have memory and I could sense energy.

You know when you have a baby and you know a moment before he starts to cry that he needs you or the phone rings and you know who it is or being in a group of people and sensing the combined energy. Funerals are sad even if you do not know the person, and the birth of a baby always makes you sigh even if it is not your baby.

So I sat there in the park making myself energy, sending Stevie all my love, sending her memories, and wrapping us together in a different sense, one that I do not understand fully because I am human right now.

My prayer is that when we leave these bodies that we discover that the five senses we experienced, that we depended on where like learning to walk or ride a bike, just the begining of something exciting. We had no idea as small children how much bigger the world was going to get or what we were going to experience.

I also pray that I am not too small for these new senses my girl has discovered and that she can still find me here in the park sitting on a bench where I can feel the energy of a very old and beautiful Russian people.