The one that got away — still finds me sometimes

Last night I dreamed I was in the old OR at Sahlgrenska, scrubbing in for an emergency craniotomy on a twelve-year-old I lost to a traumatic aneurysm in 1997. Woke up with my hands clenched, phantom-gripping a sucker tip I haven't held in fifteen years. The brain never forgets a rhythm, even when the heart tries to.