Between Bruises and Blooms

Some friendships are built
over coffee,
late-night phone calls,
and inside jokes.

Ours was built
inside hospital rooms,
waiting rooms,
cemeteries,
and the unbearable silence
that follows hearing,
“I’m sorry.”

We learned each other’s grief
before we learned
how to survive it.

Our first babies
arrived almost together.
So did the losses.

Your arms learned
the impossible weight
of saying goodbye to Thorgan.

Mine learned
what it meant
to hold MaKenna
for only a handful of hours.

There are pieces of us
buried with our children,
and somehow,
we kept breathing anyway.

We’ve buried dreams,
relationships,
pieces of ourselves,
and people we thought
would be here forever.

You’ve stood
at your father’s goodbye.
At your brother’s.

I’ve watched my own world
collapse more than once.

Still,
when one of us falls,
the other somehow remembers
how to reach through the rubble.

Distance never changed that.

Miles have never been
strong enough
to undo thirteen years
of choosing each other.

When I packed my life
and moved halfway across the country,
you came.

Because that’s who you are.

Not someone who says,
“I’m here.”

Someone who proves it.

You have seen
every version of me—

The grieving mother.
The angry one.
The hopeful one.
The exhausted one.
The woman who almost forgot
how to believe
good things could still happen.

And somehow,
you stayed.

So here’s to every tear
that never made us strangers.

Here’s to every scar
that taught us
love survives things
people swear it can’t.

Here’s to the children
who changed us,
the ones who stayed,
and the ones
who’ll always walk beside us
where nobody else can see.

And here’s to us.

Still standing.

Still laughing
through swollen eyes.

Still finding reasons
to keep writing
new chapters
after every ending.

Here’s to the rest of our lives.