Circles
We move in circles, slight shifts and minor changes, small parts of a much bigger picture. Every end is a new beginning, every heartbreaking moment beautiful in its way.
I’ve heard our eyes say goodbye to this life first, but hers shone with spirit even as she lost the fight. This woman who raised me, now confined to a hospital bed, her body frail and old before its time, slowly shutting down. Yet, her mind was still razor sharp, intact as ever, and as her delicate lips formed a soft smile, I knew she was leaving the world as she had lived it in: a beautiful contradiction.
Not that she was perfect. She smelt of cigarette smoke, a habit she cursed yet refused to give up, and she always laughed at the most inappropriate times, her raucous giggles earning stern looks from strangers wherever we went. But when she held me, all my troubles faded until I felt safe, content again. It was all I could have asked of her.
That day, she reached out for me, the skin of her hand soft, comforting, as her fingers gently grazed my stomach. The material of my t-shirt was only just beginning to grow taut, the secret still my own. Yet, she knew. Somehow, she knew.
Months later, you were born to the whispers of memory, to the salt of bittersweet tears. The world had taken with one hand and given with another. As you lay in my arms, it was her eyes that looked up at me: dark and inquisitive, wide with life. My splintered heart swelled with love.
We move in circles, slight shifts and minor changes, small parts of a much bigger picture. Every end is a new beginning, every beautiful moment heartbreaking in its way.
