Last week when Bear had surgery, I steeled myself. I just can’t go to that mysterious there sometimes. There is weakness, there is statistics and there is my grief, ready as a wet woolen blanket to be thrown back on all over.
When he was wheeled away on the almost comically over-sized hospital bed, I swallowed the lump back and turned away. NO.
When the nurse came to say he was in surgery, I nodded clinically. No.
I won’t think of the hum of the machines. I won’t think of the bright light shining down on him. I won’t think of the scalpel being passed into the hands of the young man who is Bear’s doctor. I won’t. I can’t.
He will be fine. He IS fine. Breathe in, breathe out.
Family is there, like living crutches watching my face, waiting to move. and I smile. Because I’m fine as long as I’m not there.
I am ever broken, an unfinished song and missing some part of myself perpetually.
I’m always looking, always longing, always looking to fill myself with something.
and never alone.