Space to Breathe

Where is there space for me to breathe?

One small space, once a week, has been carved out for me to speak about my grief

Is this nearly enough?

No

Not when it’s all consuming

In everything I see

Think

Feel

She’s everywhere

Where is it appropriate to talk about the experience of watching her body fail?

And the doctors tirelessly working to keep her vitals “stable”

Grasping on to the hope and optimism in their words

While their faces tell another story

Who else would be willing to hold the pain of my losing a sister?

Being asked to make a decision as her younger sibling of age 30 whether to do surgery or not to stop the bleeding, though she could “die either way.”

Then her making it through the surgery just to be told hours later “her vitals keep dropping…I think it’s time to make a decision.”

All of this I hold.

And I get one sliver of time each week

To process

Because there doesn’t seem to be anywhere else

Anyone else

Willing to hold

This amount of pain and grief

So I silently smile through my days

With each meeting

Or encounter

No one asks

Everyone’s forgotten…

But not me.

I need space to breathe.