One of those moments...

Have you ever had one of those moments that takes you instantly back in time. So vividly that it feels, smells, and sounds as if you are right there? Something like that happened to me the other day, and it has haunted me ever since. I can't shake the feelings the experience created in me.
We were all at the circus and the act began of a woman high above our heads dancing on a moon that was dangling from the top of the stadium. It wasn't the woman or her act that took me back in time, but the music to which she was performing. An old song "Lady in Red" the longer the song went on the more vivid my flashback (I suppose that is what you could call it) became. I was 16 years old in the hospital have high doses of radiation treatments, there was a lead screen across my room door so no one could come in. Those who did come in wore crazy white suits and gloves, my room floor was covered with some sort of rubber mat and even the remote control to the TV was covered. My food trays were left in the hall for a suited up nurse to bring in for me. I wasn't allowed visitors, and whatever came into the room had to stay and be disposed of when my treatments were complete. Every morning around 6 am. my dad would sneak up to my room and bring me a cup of coffee and a news paper, he would sit on the other side of the lead screen and talk to me until it was time for him to go to work. Sometimes he would sneak me a tape cassette or draw me little cartoons. He bought me a "glow worm" with a home made sign for my door that said "I now Glow". "Lady in Red was one of the songs on one of the tapes he gave me. I can't explain why that song the other night at the circus brought on the flood of memories like it did. They flashed through my mind like a slide show of family memories. Ever since that night, I miss my dad so much it hurts. I want to cry. And I do...cry...I wish I could understand God's timing. You know, my dad was an awesome Grandpa and he is missing out on my kids. But more than that my kids are missing out on knowing him...So, I guess the memory together with the knowledge that on this side of heaven my kids will never know their grandpa and what a great man he was truly just breaks my heart. On the day to day I can push that to the corners of my mind and not even realize its there, then a simple song plays at a stinking circus and here I am....Go figure....