Healing
-
4:00 a.m. Some nights sleep doesn’t come. Tonight, this did. I missthe heavy kind of quiet. The kind that settledafter a bowl,when my body finally unclenchedand my face felt warm,like gravity had loosened its gripfor just a little while. For a few precious hours,every muscle surrendered. My thoughts stopped sprinting. The ache became a whisper.…
-
There is a photograph I return to more often than I should. A boy standing in England, smiling at a pelican like he’d stumbled into a storybook. I wonder if you knew that somewhere across an ocean, a girl was waiting for your voice to tell her it was finally safe to sleep. You were…
-
People say everything happens for a reason. As if reasons are enough to quiet a heart. You arrived when I was still learning that survival and living are not the same thing. I was seventeen. Sleep felt dangerous. The walls around me heard too much. The nights lasted forever. Then there was your voice, traveling…
-
Some people arrive like seasons, beautiful, necessary, but always meant to leave. You never did. You stayed. When the world grew quiet, when grief swallowed whole conversations, when there were no words left worth saying— you stayed. You stood beside me through hospital rooms and empty nurseries. Through birthdays that hurt and anniversaries that stole…
-
There are nightswhen the world expects meto carry everythingwith steady hands. The memories.The grief.The questionsthat never learnedhow to answer themselves. So I step outside. The air is cool,the stars indifferent,and the lighter clickslike the beginningof a conversation. The smoke doesn’t promiseto fix me. It doesn’t erasethe empty chairs,the court dates,or the namesI still whisperwhen no…
-
My sweet Theo, From the moment you came into this world,you carried sunshine with you. You have always had a wayof making people laugh,of turning ordinary daysinto adventures,and of reminding methat joy can still existeven after heartbreak. You arrivedwhen my heart was still learninghow to beat around grief. You didn’t replacethe sister we lost. No…
-
My beautiful girl, It has been years,and I still wonderwho you would have become. Would your laugh sound like mine?Would you have your brothers’ kindness?Would your little sistersfollow you from room to room,wanting to be just like you? I will never know. I only had a few precious hoursto memorize your face,your tiny fingers,the weight…
-
My sweet boy, I don’t know if you’ll ever understandhow much of my hearthas always belonged to you. You made me a motherbefore I knew what motherhood really meant.We learned together—through sleepless nights,sticky hands,cartoons playing before sunrise,and a thousand little momentsthat no photograph could ever hold. I’ve watched you growfrom the tiny boy who reached…
-
It’s four in the morning. The world has gone quiet,but my mind never got the memo. The clock keeps counting secondslike they’re something I can spend,while I bargain with sleepthat refuses to bargain back. The house is still.The coffee pot is empty.The moon watcheswithout offering advice. So I stand barefootin front of the refrigerator,bathed in…
-
Some call it escape. Maybe they’re right. But sometimes it’s the only place my shoulders remember how to unclench. The world demands I carry grief like it’s weightless. Cannabis asks nothing. Only, “Sit for a while.” So I do. I breathe. I watch thoughts stop colliding long enough to hear my own heartbeat beneath the…
Between Bruises and Blooms 