The Gift of Memory

It was the perfect Sunday afternoon for Rachel as she leaned back, closed her eyes and listened to the music. She had all the songs from her youth queued into her YouTube account. Nostalgia took over as each song eased her along the path to a time when she had no worries.

The music gently eased Rachel deeper and deeper into a trance. A flash of a past life broke the feeling. Rachel opened her eyes and actively tried to slow her breathing. It was like a television program where a disturbing thought intrudes for a second. The songs kept playing when the next flash hit. ‘What is that,’ Rachel thought.

Several flashes of memory were coming each minute now. The music seemed to bring it out. Rachel wanted it to stop, but was too hypnotized by the music and visions to stop. The fragments, flashes, of memory were starting to piece together. She was remembering her childhood and she was a boy!

Rachel accepted the memories, no matter how hard they were to see. She remembers life as a boy on a small farm. It was summer, late summer, when the accident happened. She could not remember what happened, but she recalled hearing her mother yell, “Robert!” Then everything went black.

Rachel knew there were things in her childhood nobody talked about. Whatever mental self-defenses she had started to crumble when she listened to the classic music of years gone by. She remembers life as a boy until the accident at age twelve. It is the first time she knew she was born male. What would she tell her husband? Her child? Sometimes lazy late summer afternoons have some wild surprises.