To the One Beside the Hospital Bed

I see you.

Holding your hurt so close to your heart it stays unspoken. Hoping that your tired eyes don’t show beneath the coffee and the makeup. Hiding the burden you carry because you are the smile, the steady hand and the bringer of flowers and fuzzy socks and all the things big and little.

I know you.

You are brother and sister. You are mother and father. You are nana and papa. You are husband and wife. You are son and daughter. You are friend and neighbor. You are grace and laughter. You are love and tears. You are the reason to wake up, to push through, to hold on and to fight.

I hear you.

When you fill the silence with words because the what-ifs are too hard to carry. When you whisper things into the darkness of a hospital room that you hope are already known. When you say yes to everything offered because there is no price tag too high for the chance to have another day with me in it.

I get you.

Doing all the things that must be done even though your whole world has fallen down. Forcing yourself to put one foot in front of the other just to find tomorrow. Leaving the hospital to find yourself sobbing in the car only to realize you are home again and have to pull it all together.

Because life must go on to the humdrum beat of the mundane.

Bills paid and lunches packed and papers signed and groceries bought and plumbing fixed and oil changed in such a steady, familiar pound that no one seems to recognize its bravery.

And yet it is.

So even when you feel like a hero unsung, know that you are always noticed.

For you are the light in my smile, in my strength, in my very breath. You are the way He holds my hand in places where no one else will tread. You are the one who carries the chance of a hard goodbye in every sweet hello.

You are so much more than mundane or humdrum or familiar.

You are an everyday warrior of love.

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