Sometimes my skin just doesn’t fit right.
My bones feel too jagged.
There’s an itch beneath the surface that makes my demons scream to be fed.
I hate sitting here.
She tells me they poisoned her.
Says she can taste it… smell it.
I can smell it too.
But it’s not poison. It’s death.
I look at her with compassion and love.
How terrifying it must be.
Her mind scrambling to make sense of the impossible.
I slide into a different position in my chair.
Cocooning. Comforting from afar.
‘I never imagined this,’ she says softly.
‘Me neither,’ I reply.
It’s true.
I never imagined her being someone to get sick.
Always bringing new and exotic “health formulas” into our lives to try.
Kombucha I was familiar with while I was still knee-high to a grasshopper.
She was the searcher. The seeker.
And now she’s here.
Thankfully not alone.
With us.
‘I’m not ready for this,’ my sister had said.
‘Me neither,’ I had agreed.
Both of us quietly acknowledging our surprise at still grappling with remnants of our mother’s path towards death.
It occurred to me I probably wouldn’t feel ready ever again. It always feels too soon.
Grief.
Such a loaded word.
The stress and turmoil of a loved one dying.
Watching as they slowly slip behind the veil of the living.
Being reminded that we each will someday walk that journey.
We talk about chocolate. And children. Past decisions. Skirting around the words that hang in the air unspoken.
“I love you.” “I’m scared.”
‘I’m tired,’ she says.
I help her up the stairs and we organise her bedroom for her.
I give her a hug. She’s so small now.
I can’t help but think of the irony of that after a lifetime of struggling with her size.
We say our goodbyes.
The weight of what goodbye now means, curling its fingers around each moment.
Is this the last time we will see eachother?
My sister and I talk in soft whispers in the kitchen.
We know what’s coming. We hug.
And say our goodbyes.
As I drive home, I pick over our memories…
deliberating on which pieces of her I will keep.