If you’ve been reading my writing for a while, you’ve witnessed parts of my story.

You’ve been here for the grief.

The rebuilding.

The memories, lessons, and experiences that have shaped me.

You’ve seen my reflections on loss and love, caregiving and courage, exhaustion and resilience, faith and gratitude, spirituality and healing. In many ways, you’ve watched me try to make sense of what it means to be human.

You’ve been here for the moments I wasn’t sure what came next.

The days when survival felt like enough.

The days when I was learning, in real time, how to keep showing up when life didn’t go according to plan.

And for that, I want to say thank you.

Writing has always been one of the ways I’ve made sense of the human experience. Long before I was a therapist, speaker, coach, author, or business owner, I was simply a person trying to understand life—trying to find meaning in the things that break us and the things that help us heal.

I think that’s what led me to this work in the first place.

My professional journey has always been rooted in curiosity about people, relationships, resilience, and the ways we adapt when life asks more of us than we ever expected to give.

Over the years, both personally and professionally, I’ve learned something that continues to shape the way I live and the way I work:

Healing isn’t becoming someone new.

It’s returning to who you’ve always been.

Many of us spend so much time trying to manage our thoughts that we forget to listen to our bodies.

We push through.

We stay busy.

We overthink.

We carry responsibilities.

We care for everyone else.

And somewhere along the way, we lose connection with ourselves. We lose the comfort of our first real home, our bodies.

The truth is that our body is often speaking long before our mind catches up.

The racing thoughts.

The tight chest.

The exhaustion.

The overwhelm.

The feeling that we’re carrying more than we were ever meant to carry alone. I often describe this as being draped in a weighted blanket. Heavy and suffocating.

These aren’t signs that you’re failing or doing life wrong.

They’re invitations to pay attention. To pause and bring awareness to your body. An opportunity to reconnect with yourself.

That’s why I created this workbook.

Free 10- Day Nervous Reset Guide

The 10-Day Survival Mode Reset™ is my gift to you.

Not because I believe healing happens in ten days.

And not because I think there is a quick fix for grief, stress, burnout, heartbreak, or being human.

But because I believe ten intentional days can create space.

Space to breathe.

Space to listen.

Space to reconnect with yourself.

Inside these pages, you’ll find many of the tools and perspectives that have shaped both my professional work and my personal journey—lessons gathered from sitting beside others in their hardest moments and walking through a few of my own.

You’ll learn about nervous system regulation, self-trust, boundaries, purposeful processing, emotional awareness, and how to stop fighting battles that your mind was never meant to win.

Most importantly, I hope you’ll discover that healing isn’t about becoming someone new.

It’s about returning to who you’ve always been.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for walking alongside me through some of the most meaningful chapters of my life.

I hope this workbook serves you well.

With gratitude,

Chelsea

Psychotherapist • Coach • Speaker • Author

P.S. There is no perfect way to do this workbook. Move slowly. Be curious. Be compassionate with yourself. Come back to the exercises whenever you need them. They’ll be here waiting for you.

Free 10- Day Nervous Reset Guide

One year ago today, on Mother’s Day, I sat in a hospital room feeling devastated that I couldn’t be with my children, our children. I remember sitting on the recliner beside my husband’s hospital bed, picking up my phone to FaceTime them. Our daughter was sick, and Steve, my husband, their father, was too medically fragile to risk catching whatever bug she had.

I remember staring at my phone after the FaceTime ended, the silence in the room so loud it felt suffocating.I laugh now thinking about calling it silent because hospital rooms are never silent. Machines hum. Tubes drain. Nurses chatter in hallways. But in that moment, it felt silent.

By then, I had already been living in the hospital nearly 24 hours a day for seven weeks, minus a handful of breaks when my mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sisters, or best friend could be there to monitor him. I couldn’t risk leaving him alone. Not even for an hour. Everything felt dangerous. Fragile. Like, at any minute, something catastrophic could happen.

And often, it did.

He would stabilize for a moment and then—boom—complete medical chaos.

There was the early morning on Easter when he bled so profusely it soaked the hospital bed.

The time blood started coming through his nasal tube.

The relentless psychosis that, the first time it happened, lasted twenty-one days.

The seizure-like episodes that came one after another while doctors struggled to understand what was happening.

The fall I tried to stop, but even with my sister helping me, we couldn’t hold his 6’4”, 200-pound body.

The swelling so severe he barely looked like himself anymore.

One emergency after another. Too many surgeries to count. Too many moments when the entire medical team wasn’t enough, so they called in the MET team for help.

I wouldn’t risk anything we could possibly prevent. So I spent Mother’s Day where I had spent nearly every day for seven weeks—beside my husband in a hospital room, missing the two people who made me a mother.

Still, I remember getting dressed that morning the same way I did every day. Makeup on. Hair pulled back. Trying to create some sense of normalcy inside complete terror. I DoorDashed nail polish, an açaí bowl, face masks, donuts, and flowers for the nurses.

When you don’t know what to do, be of service.

That thought jars another memory loose—my brother-in-law showing up to be of service to both of us.

He had flown in after one of the worst nights of Steve’s illness. A night filled with terrifying involuntary body and facial movements that mirrored severe seizures and went on relentlessly for hours. I was hysterical. My body trembling from exhaustion and adrenaline. Terrified. Helpless.

While he was out that day, he brought Steve a Mother’s Day card to sign for me.

Later, he told me Steve had taken a very long time writing in it.

When I opened the card, the handwriting stopped me cold.

My husband—brilliant, sharp, once tested with a nearly genius IQ, with perfect penmanship—his writing looked like a child’s. His handwriting shook across the page like his body no longer remembered how to be him.

It was beautiful agony. I felt his words, his sweetness, the essence of his soul land directly in my heart. There’s something fascinating about the heart—how research now shows it’s more than just an organ keeping us alive. The heart has its own neural network, sometimes called “the little brain in the heart,” constantly communicating with the brain through emotion, sensation, and memory. Maybe that’s why grief feels so physical. Why love can ache in your chest like something alive inside you. In that moment, holding that card in my trembling hands, it felt as though my heart recognized him before my mind could even process what I was seeing.

I remember my chest pounding as tears sparked in my eyes, his sweet words uneven and childlike across the card, and the devastating realization that his body was slowly forgetting how to be him.

And suddenly, as I write this, I am back in another moment entirely, hearing the hospice doctor tell me we had walked along the edge of a cliff for so long that I had forgotten how one small shift could make us fall off.

I spent that Mother’s Day the same way I spent most days during those final weeks: sitting in the recliner beside his hospital bed, facing him so my eyes could always find his face, slipping my hand underneath the bed rail so I could hold his.

My love.

Their dad.

My heart still full of hope.

That’s what hindsight does to grief. It makes you realize how much you didn’t know while you were living inside it.

I didn’t know that on that Mother’s Day I only had fourteen more days left with him.

I didn’t know he would leave this earth.

I didn’t know we would never celebrate another Mother’s Day together—the day that always reminded us our love created the two people who made me a mother.

My heart shatters for the woman I was that day. The one in polka dot pants, a black tank top, jean jacket, ponytail, and freshly painted nails. So hopeful. So exhausted. So desperately trying to believe love could still save him.

And I ache for our babies, who are hardly babies anymore. Our son is seventeen now. Our daughter almost sixteen. Both taller than me now. Another layer of grief widows quietly carry: knowing the person who loved your children most beside you no longer gets to witness who they are becoming.

Today was my first Mother’s Day without him.

I talked to him anyway.

“Babe, we did good. So good. And they took care of me today the way you always took care of me.”

We love you. We miss you.

And somehow, even through heartbreak, the cracks keep letting more love in.

Thank you for this gift.

Share

It has been a while.

The thing about grief is that the foundation of your life no longer feels steady. The illusion that it ever was has now been exposed, and that giant spotlight shining on the rubble feels overwhelming — uncertain, unsafe.

In fact, nothing feels safe anymore because we now know the truth: that this whole life is only an illusion of safety. At any minute of any day, we could be the one taking our last inhalation with no exhale left. Jaw dropped, perhaps eyes still open, heart still beating for those last few minutes — and then it is over.

There is only a body left.

And in my case, it was his body.
My now late husband’s beautiful body. Filled with fluid retention, swollen, unable to move. The light no longer in his eyes as I gently pushed down each lid to close them.

Rest my love. Rest.

The living no longer know what rest means.

Rest is counterintuitive when you are the one left. Eating is foreign. Drinking, walking — anything normal feels abnormal. There isn’t one second, not even one, where you are not keenly aware that your foundation has been bombed and you’re bleeding out with no insight into how to make the bleeding stop.

In fact, there isn’t even a desire to stop bleeding — because stopping bleeding feels like stopping grieving. And one never wants to forget, not a single second, what it was like to have that person here on earth.

So attempting to stop the bleed isn’t even a desire.

The bleeding is rapid at first.

Blood flowing everywhere. You talk about it. Dream about it. Wake up choking as if being strangled. Blood falling out of your mouth. Tears down your face. Covered in agony.

“My husband is dead,” said to random strangers.

Aversion to eye contact because it risks more blood.

But I could not help myself.

Eye contact felt different now. It was as though the blood was contagious. Like a shark smelling blood, I too could see another’s wounds. I saw it in their eyes — that depth of pain rooted in my inner knowing:

You’ve been through something too.

And then there are the tears.

Tears of such intensity that I would beg out loud for his return.

“Baby, how can this be? How are you not here? How will I ever be able to do this without you?”

Hysteria that would result in me sitting on the floor rocking back and forth until I could catch my breath.

The brain is like scrambled eggs. Not yummy, fluffy eggs — but eggs with shells that don’t smell right, that keep falling out of the pan or are overcooked with such grit that it feels as though the pan will be ruined.

My brain didn’t work. Hard because everything. Getting the mail, groceries, taking care of any household responsibility, bills — all the easy things felt like being disabled and having to figure out how to do simple tasks in a completely new way.

Two weeks after his death, I began to shut down.

In therapy, we call this agoraphobic — when the world outside your home feels intolerable, unsafe, impossible to enter.

But clinical language feels sterile compared to the lived experience of it.

It wasn’t just fear.

It was collapse.

I remember the first time I tried to go pick up cheesecake mix at Walmart. Of all places — fluorescent lights, beeping registers, vacationers everywhere — the ordinary chaos of the living.

I wanteda tub of cheesecake. Something simple. Something normal. I didn’t even think twice.

But the moment I walked through those sliding glass doors, panic overtook me.

My chest tightened. Vision blurred. Sound distorted like I was underwater. My body knew before my brain could process it — this is not safe.

I abandoned the two girlfriends I was with and raced back to the car.

Hyperventilating.
Sobbing.
Gripping the car door like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

How is the world still moving…
…when my world just ended?

But here’s the truth I would learn slowly:

My world did not end.

My chapter ended.
Cancer ended.
My husband’s life ended.
Our life as we knew it ended.
Our hopes and dreams ended.

So much of grief is grieving what was…
…and what could have been.

It was a phone call that changed everything.

My sister invited me and the kids to meet her family in Paris, France.

Paris.

It sounded absurd. Impossible.

How could I get on a plane?
Be around humans?
Go to France… when my life had exploded?
When even the idea of flossing my teeth felt hard?

“I’ll talk to the kids,” I told her.

We only had a few hours to commit. The trip was in three days.

I sat down with our babies — our teenagers who will always be little to me and to their father. The grief exposed them in a childlike way, and the helplessness I felt to shield them and protect them made the bleeding out even more. They, too, were bleeding, and I could not make it better.

Teenagers who had seen too much.
Been through too much.
Who held their dad’s hand.
Who slept in the recliner next to his hospital bed.
Who learned to say goodbye far too early.

Kids who bravely showed up and leaned in — with open hearts and broken hearts.

Their first answer was no.

“We don’t think so.”

And I understood.

But then I heard your voice, baby.

My husband’s voice — laughing.

“YES, of course!”

And I remembered how we had just renewed all of our passports the year prior in hopes of traveling abroad.

I thought about the many trips he had taken to France and all over the world.

I thought about his fight for life — his willingness to keep saying yes to living despite his illness.

Chemo bag at volleyball games.
Active infection but still going to a Dead and Company concert.
Visiting his roadie buddies whenever he felt remotely decent.
Spending his first disability check on an electric bike because we loved riding together — even though his body was no longer able to.

The way he still tried to care for us.
Still said yes to every ask of our children…
Even while his body was in the fight of his life.

“Yes,” I said out loud.

That will be our duty — to honor your father’s life.

We will say yes to every invite.
Yes to living.

Our bodies and brains will protest.

So we created a boundary:

Yes only needs to be ten minutes of immersion.
After that, we can leave.
We can change our minds.
We can go back to the hotel and cry if we need to.

But we will say yes.

I made up my mind and, in that moment, I could see him smiling down.

It has been almost nine months now.

My brain has finally turned back on. My grief is integrating. My life has been lived amidst the day-to-day chaos.

So many miracles.
So many stories.

My yeses to continuing to live big while I grieved big. The gifts are starting to come back.

This was the beginning.

The beginning of grieving big.
Living big.
And keeping my wounded heart wide open.

Thank you for your love.
Your support.
For being a reader.

All my love,
Chelsea

I’m here with our daughter. At a concert in the same venue where you and she went to your last concert together — the final one you’d ever attend with her, and the last one she’d share with you. Because you, my love, have left in physical form. Death has robbed us all of the comfort of your presence.

My eyes fill with tears when Billie Eilish starts singing Ocean Eyes. My breath catches. Baby, I see you. I see the deep blue depth of your eyes meeting mine. The quiet knowing that used to live between our eyes. It was your superpower, my love— the way you looked so deeply into my eyes when you spoke that I felt seen. It was as though you were looking straight through my soul. And in turn, I could see yours too. Tethered in the locking of our eyes, there was a knowing — that beautiful, wordless understanding that happens when eyes speak loudly because words can never cover the truth of eyes.

Now, it makes me think of my new world — the one I’m navigating through grief, agony, and pain. How my eyes now find new delights, small glimmers of hope. Grief has slowed my mind and made me notice the beauty in every natural detail. I’ve always had the gift of sensing things, of reading eyes. And now, the eyes of others in pain shine like a spotlight, saying, “Here I am, too. I’ve been through some shit.” Isn’t it strange how pain becomes a shortcut to recognizing pain in others? The eyes don’t lie. Show me your eyes, and I’ll know your soul.

There are layers and depths within them—the shine of eyes not yet dulled by the agony of being human. I love shiny eyes — that sparkle, that flicker of magic. The way it stirs curiosity and excitement. The way it speaks. Sparkly eyes are contagious; they offer a flash of wonder to anyone lucky enough to catch a glimpse, even now, as I type these words, a small smile forms on my lips.

I’ve always been attuned to seeing — to reading — to noticing depth. I remember when our son was in kindergarten, seeing a boy with hollow eyes. Eyes that were stripped of innocence, robbed by neglect or some sort of cruelty. Reminding me of a kid I used to do therapy with, if you can call it therapy, since I would leave the office door open and only play cards with him during our sessions. He had eyes that warned of danger — the kind that makes your body tighten before your mind catches up.

And yet, I’d like to believe that eyes can change — that we can add new layers, making them more complex, more beautiful eyes. That pain can soften through gratitude, love, and presence — through truly seeing the human in front of us. Because connection, even in the briefest glance, can make this world feel a little less isolating. The truth is, once we’ve seen, we cannot unsee. So I trust that faith and God are holding me as I keep looking. My eyes wide open.

Because that’s what human connection really is — you see me, and I see you. The real you. The mirror of my eyes reflecting your own eyes right back at you. And let’s be honest — who doesn’t want to be seen for all of their layers?

Our children have your eyes — the depth of a beautiful ocean, still glimmering with light. But now, that ocean holds new layers too. The kind that comes from the vicarious trauma of simply being human… and from losing you, sweet baby. I see it in them — the tenderness, the ache, the wonder—the knowing.

And maybe that’s the legacy of love: when the eyes of those we leave behind still carry the shimmer of our own.

I often wonder if my children know how many times they save me. Do they know how deeply their words land, straight to my soul? I sit with the greatness, grace, and kindness they show me and wonder if I will ever fully accept their love — to truly feel worthy of it.

I wonder if they know that on the days I don’t want to get out of bed, they are the “why” of my entire soul. I wake with a pit in my core, knowing their father — my husband — is gone. No longer here. Their worlds are forever changed. They will live more years on this earth without their father than they did with him. It is agony, anguish, to feel his beautiful soul no longer reflected to them in human form.

I see his eyes. I feel the love that poured out of him — behaviorally, emotionally, verbally, physically. The way he looked at them. All the “yes’s” he spoke and followed through with despite his body’s protest. They don’t know the full depth of the life he fought for, a life rooted entirely in his love for them.

And so I get up. I face reality head-on. I savor every second he wanted with them. I hold them, love them, and tell them all the ways they mirror him. I honor every ounce of time I have left on this earth to be both me and him. This means showing up. Being present. Pausing. Being authentic. Being human and not shutting down. Dancing in the dark so I can keep finding the light. The light feels closer when I am with our most beautiful creations, formed from our love.

I see our boy’s sweet face — a face that looks like mine but carries his father’s personality. His body is no longer a boy’s, but turning into more of a man. Big hands folding laundry next to me. Messy, grown-out hair. Big teeth like mine. Broad shoulders like his grandfather. Eyes kind and deep blue, no longer innocent but still lighting up when he’s excited to share something with me. Eyes that already know hardship, death, grief, imperfect parents — all the things I wish he had been spared. The psychotherapist in me knows his resiliency will win, and I hate it all at the same time.

Today, as we fold laundry, I tell him, “Miles, I’m going to miss you so much.”
“When?” he asks.
“When you graduate and leave home to explore the world.”
“Mom,” he says, “maybe I’ll get rich. You can live with me.”

His words are so genuine, so sincere, I’m taken aback. “Really? That’s so sweet, buddy — the sweetest thing you could say to me.”
“Of course!” he replies without hesitation.

I can see he means it. It reminds me so much of his father — those times when I didn’t feel worthy, and Steve would look at me with genuine admiration and a depth of love that felt almost uncomfortable. He saw something in me I couldn’t see, perhaps still can’t. It was so simple for him to love me.

And I hate my reaction — the way I start crying as I hug our son, wishing Steve could be here to hear our sixteen-year-old boy’s words and smile alongside me. I choke on my breath at the enormity of their love, love I sometimes can’t comprehend.

Tonight I come home after a few drinks with my cousin — another family member who saves me without even knowing. My daughter texts me a photo of pumpkin bread she has baked. I walk into the house to the aroma of cinnamon, pumpkin, and chocolate, and immediately grab a fork to dig in. I compliment her baking and listen to her describe how she ripened the bananas by baking them when her phone rings. It’s her friend.

“Jackson is coming over to get some bread,” she says. “He saw my TikTok of me baking.”

She’s on the couch, candles lit, watching Gossip Girl on TV, wearing my old flannel monkey pajamas. Her hair is wrapped in a towel. That beautiful face, so youthful and full of life, smiling at the thought of her friend driving over to taste her bread.

A few minutes later, a Bronco pulls up and this kid walks in. My heart explodes with joy. I love that our home is a revolving door of teenagers coming and going — cooking, watching TV, sharing hot gossip, just being.

Little do they know they make my home even more of a refuge. It reminds me of my husband lying in bed, his body worn down from chemo, surgeries, and disease, our bedroom door always wide open so he could hear the kids laughing and being teens. It doesn’t matter how sick he was or how awful he felt — they saved him over and over again. Their love softened the pain.

Lord, I never fully understand the gift of Miles and Charlie. I only know I don’t feel worthy of the love they give me. In my heart, I know they are my greatest miracles. My prayers of gratitude always end with an ask: reveal all the wounds I need to heal to be the mother they deserve.

I am stronger than I know, braver than I know, and wiser than I think.

You are stronger than you know. Braver than you know. Wiser than you think.

We were given the gift of knowing. Born sensitive. “You feel too much” — all the things.

Or perhaps you feel just perfectly, if you weren’t dismissed for seeing the unseen through feeling.

The unseen feeling, so honest and true that it is a superpower: to feel knowing before the brain taints the unknowing by rationalizing, overanalyzing, or coating it with sugar, dirt, or another concrete lie the mind clings to as truth.

Feeling, intuitive, sensitive, and gifted people know the truth so instinctually that the gut becomes impossible to ignore. The body refuses any other explanation.

But we want an explanation, and when our brain wins the war with ‘logic’, sensitive souls will abandon themselves, often using suppression. This pushing down feeling through maladaptive coping skills is what makes you sick — anxious, apathetic, restless, unsettled, nauseous, fatigued.

We’ve been taught not to differentiate; you feel but conform for safety. It’s the lie that makes us sheep, vulnerable to the herder.

It is a radical act to disconnect as a form of protection — to pause, excuse yourself, take a beat, breathe, center, reconnect with the blessings and challenges of gifted sensitivity.

Dear human, protect your energy. You only have so much. Protect what matters. You are vulnerable to caring for too many things. Too much. It is beautiful, but discernment will empower your soul and expand your gifts. Discernment will keep your heart close to God.

Balance will be your greatest attunement to spiritual alignment. Only with clarity will the truth impregnate every cell, and attunement become steady with the bliss of being, feeling whole. It is in wholeness that we can use this gift to make decisions rooted in love, advocacy, and courage.

It feels counterintuitive to disconnect. Counterintuitive to protect. The desire to jump out of your lane to rescue another, to understand another human, to see the path and want to soften it for them, or feel safe when the world feels chaotic, unpredictable, and emotionally dangerous.

You want to love, to show love, to be unconditional love. That’s why you can so easily conform. A friend once said to me, “Your body is solid in the truest sense of self, but your head is completely open.”

Understanding and accepting influence doesn’t mean losing yourself. It is a reminder: your body is always the safest place to be. It is the source of truth.

So stay close to your heart. Protect it. Care for it, nurture it, offer it compassionate understanding. Stay out of your head and in your heart.

Stay on your balanced journey of meditation, prayer, and seeking spiritual guidance. You are love. God is love. All this love resides in you. There is abundance in this well — but begin with you, my love.

Amen.

I was never meant to stay in sadness.
Never meant to live in the dark, even when the light felt impossibly far away.
I was never meant to say yes when my body whispered no.
Never meant to agree before I considered my own voice.

Self-abandonment so easy to do… until I learned the quiet, radical truth: I, we, all have the right to choose.

I’ve learned to stop.
To pause.
To notice the cracks of life the way you see a crack in the sidewalk—a small, jagged, imperfect piece of concrete.

Something happened there: a mishap, human error, perhaps nature, weather, or simply the passage of time.
Do I care to notice?
Do I care to see or do I keep pushing through, avoiding what does not matter to me, or simply avoid the crack because it brings me unease?

Do I step over it with intention? Or do I walk without seeing, risking my feet to trip or even fall? Does this fall result in being pissed off at the crack, or blame, or staying stuck in the should have known trap?
Or do I rush by, blind to its imperfection? Or do I mindfully pay attention to each step I take?

Sometimes a crack warns me to slow down.
Other times, a reminder of resiliency, where wildflowers might grow.
Either way, that crack is there until it’s not.

I ask myself the same questions in the mirror.
Are the lines on my face cracks in my soul, or evidence of how deeply I’ve lived?
Do the lines around my eyes represent sadness or smiles?
When I catch my own gaze, I sometimes do smile.
Sometimes I tear up, as if seeing my own soul for the first time—uncomfortable when all that has made up my heart shows so vividly through.

My soul so deeply impacted my late husband—his eyes wide open, trusting, locked into mine.
During our own cracks. Marital cracks caused by each of our human cracks.
Memories like a movie trailer of love, loss, discord, disconnect, and reconnection.
In those moments, our eyes became a bridge between souls.
Each keenly attuned to the crack in front of us.
Radically paying attention with intention to explore and see.
To radically choose what to dig into and what to step over.

I’ve known that same intensity in other ways too—in making love, in being truly seen, in being wanted not for fragments but for my whole being—instances of utter beauty with raw vulnerability.

I’ve seen my cracks reflected in deep friendships when, intuitively, a loved one reaches out because they can feel my soul and sense my need.

I’ve witnessed the exposure of my cracks when another, cracked human holds my gaze just a split second longer, catching a layer reflected in both of us. A knowing of I see you and you see me.

My children so wired for attunement that they have the ability to detect my cracks simply by feeling.

Human eyes see cracks everywhere:
a slump of the shoulders,
a flicker in the voice,
a gesture that betrays more than words ever could.
If we, the witnesses, slow down enough, we can see the darkness inside the crack—and also the depth, the light, the story.

I imagine how different life would be if we stopped to really look — if we paused long enough to notice. Sometimes kneeling to examine a crack, other times simply stepping aside, always remembering we were never meant to live inside them. Every crack carries light. So I open my eyes wide, unapologetic, knowing my cracks see your cracks too — and still I keep moving toward the light, one sidewalk crack at a time.

My brain isn’t as present as theirs. I was in the moment, but immediately found myself in danger, imagining all those nuggets leading to the ER. It’s absurd. Irrational, and I know logically that death does that. The death of my husband, my children’s father, makes death now the default thought of anything perceived as unsafe, unhealthy, or a threat. I become even more irrational with the idea of sneaking a few boxes of nuggets into the trash as a way to mitigate the 240-goal nugget consumption I worry will kill them.

And then, a shift from this insane thought to the thoughts that have consumed my day. It is Charlie, my daughter’s last night of being fourteen. She is so beautiful—5’10, long brown hair, her father’s bedroom eyes that are blue and turn down slightly at the corners. More than physically beautiful, her heart is turned inside out because it shows on the outside too. Congruent with her goodness, her insides match that of her outside.

I leave the boys laughing and join my daughter, our daughter who is now only mine because her father is no longer here. But she is ours because she was made from us, her parents. I hate how stuck I get on words—ours and mine. I wander into other annoyances: my husband, late husband, dead husband. STOP, Chelsea, I think.

In her room, I reflect on the past year of her life as a fourteen-year-old. I ask her questions about what she liked, didn’t like, and what stands out. This is my process that I follow each year on my birthday. She calls me weird and gives me the look that teens give to their parents, which makes me laugh and smile, enamored with her as a human. She is so entirely herself—singing to random music hooks, laughing, careless, free. My god, I am so very proud of her. I know her father sees her, and yet I cannot help but feel the stab of her having her first birthday without you being on this earth.

Earlier today, I froze at Target. Literally got stuck. Not stuck in a good way like an epiphany, but frozen in front of the birthday card aisle. The weight of it was so heavy that I could not move: he won’t be here for her birthday. The truth tears me apart so ferociously that I stay frozen. Still. No physical movement except a steady stream of tears that run down my cheeks into my mouth. I don’t know how long I stayed there. I just did until I didn’t. Until I took a breath big enough to connect with myself and pivot. Pivot back to the task at hand—shopping for our girl. I stick to my motto, “When all else fails, be of service.” I decide to get her a gift from you, her father.

I choose a dainty Kendra Scott necklace—tiny stars. The stars remind me of her father’s tattoos. The stars that we will ink on our skin this winter—a memory of him. This necklace will be his gift to her, from him. I believe he would have picked it. He loved giving gifts and was exceptionally talented at selecting jewelry. And then I see a stuffed flower. The flower feels like her: blooming, soft, innocent—a reminder that even as she grows, part of her still clings to childhood. That will be from you, her father, my husband too.

Later, I wrap each gift and sit quietly, allowing the complex feelings of love and ache to take hold. Tomorrow she will wake up and be fifteen, and the day will carry both celebration and absence. She will unwrap her necklace, her stuffed flower, and I will tell her they are from you because they are. Because love leaves traces in all the small things—stars, flowers, stuffed animals, memories, and moments.

The boys’ laughter still echoes from the kitchen, a reminder that life continues even when it feels impossible. The laughter that saves me over and over again reminds me of the point that it, life, keeps going. In the middle of grief, life still insists on showing up: in 240 chicken nuggets, in shirtless boys, in our girl blooming into another year old, in her father’s love carried forward through me.

I miss you with every breath, and yet somehow, we keep living. Each second reminds me of what’s gone, and each second I remind myself I can still choose to show up. And if today you, dear reader, feel stuck, paralyzed, or lost, maybe you’ll drive past a McDonald’s—or the Mac Donald’s, as they call it in the South—and remember: sometimes all it takes is 240 chicken nuggets to prove that life keeps going.

“Babe, will you clean my glasses?” you asked.

Your sweet, sweet, handsome face. The face I’d kissed a million times. The face I’d stare at for no reason other than to admire your symmetry and those youthful, unfairly good genetics. The face with your lips—the same lips I kissed even after you were gone.

By then, you were somewhere between here and… there. Wherever “there” is. Your eyes had that faraway daze. Fatigue consumed you, slowing your words and leaving your jaw partially open. Your body so very still, paralyzed, unable to move even the smallest limb on your own.

I took your glasses off, and something inside me cracked. Tears streamed down my cheeks in a flood I couldn’t stop. My body knew before my mind did—this was probably the last time I’d ever clean your glasses. I looked at you—your sweet face, your gray beard, your mouth and teeth, your lips that still puckered instinctively for mine. My beautiful love. The first of the lasts. And now, I’m in the firsts of life without you. The cruelty of it is suffocating. Each “first of the lasts” steals my air, sends me into panic.

I kiss your glasses. I hold them like they’re a piece of you. I know they aren’t you, but they touched your skin. They sat on my favorite part of your body—your face. Your kind eyes. Your trusting eyes. The eyes that would still catch me off guard, staring at me even after all these years. The eyes so full of optimism and hope. The eyes that, in the end, as you leaned in, carried peace. Your inner peace was beautiful, sweet baby. But it was your’s only. It was not mine.

Now, I lie in our bed, clutching an orange, weighted stuffed cat —a stand-in for your body. Symbolic of some of your last words to me. “You will know it is me when an orange cat shows up at our home.” I cry silently, stifling the internal wail so I don’t disturb our daughter, who is watching reality TV in her room. I stare at your glasses and kiss each lens. I go through your wallet, running my fingers over your credit cards, the worn receipts—bargaining with the universe for one more trace of you. It’s empty agony.

The pain fills my entire body. My stomach trembles. My heart pounds so hard I feel it in my throat. I miss you. No—I miss you more than I can say. Every single second is a second that my heart and mind know that you are not here. I am so lost without you. These moments swallow me whole.

Baby… how can this be? How can this possibly be?
My heart is shattered into pieces so small I can’t seem to put them back together. The pieces that do exist no longer fit, and many are lost. I hold on to the lasts and lean into my firsts—the first of many without you, my love.

I once said that being a witness to cancer was like wearing a weighted blanket. Heavy. Always there. A constant weight. At times, too unbearable to bear. I remember thinking, “This is so fucking hard. How do people do this? I am so tired. So helpless. Keep going, Chelsea. He has it worse. He is so tired. He is in pain, physically and emotionally. He is helpless. He keeps going.”

Going with cancer is a constant fight. Fighting with your body to get out of bed. Fighting your mind to not spiral into the darkness that risks stealing all the good right in front of you. Fighting means staying far away from any “what ifs” of a 14% survival rate. It means radically holding onto the now. Right here. Living, even when your body is in a losing battle, means pushing. He did this. My husband. He did it gracefully. Intentionally. With so much grit and determination.

My weighted blanket was his removal of heaviness. He shed layer after layer. That’s what disease does—it strips you of all the things we think make us who we are. Provider, gone. Career traveling the world, gone. Hair, gone. Muscle, gone. Control over his body, gone. Stomach sliced open, scarred haphazardly. Teeth, chemo-attacked. Feet numb with neuropathy. Energy, depleted. Gone. Non-existent.

And yet, he was left exposed—pure, beautiful, simple, handsome. Eyes full of love. So much love and grace. I will always be in awe of his grace. Polite. Kind. “I’m great,” he’d say. Because great was exactly what he chose to focus on. He once told me his job was to ignore the pain. Even when it was a 6–8 out of 10, he wanted to be awake and present, so he didn’t self-medicate that way.

The three Bs were his world: bed and bathroom. Both brutal. Even in sleep, his face furrowed with pain. His body jolted like he was being tasered. Trauma poured out of him. The bathroom was anguish. That’s what happens when a large part of your rectum is removed. I hated those sounds. I would lie awake and pray: “Lord, take this anguish away.”

The nights were long. Sleep, as a wife witnessing her husband’s fight, fighing alongside of him in another battle is restless. Exhaustion, broken sleep, drooling sleep, bad dreams sleep, awake with panic, racing thoughts. And then the cruel irony of morning. “How was your night, babe?” I’d ask. “Great!” he’d say. “Great.” As though he remembered nothing of his own agony. And for a moment, it felt like the nightmare ended. But I knew nightmares don’t just end. And if we were lucky, this nights, night after night of restlessness would come again.

At the end of his life, we spent nine weeks in the hospital. By “we,” I mean all of him—and mostly me. The emotional blanket doubled in weight. Every bone in my body ached. My neck couldn’t turn all the way. My bed was a recliner. Night after night, I chose that chair, even though it made everything hurt worse. Adrenaline kept me alert. Jolted by the changes in his breath. Jolted by the hacking, the thick mucus he kept spitting up. So thick it clogged the nasel tube over and over again. The tube he hated. The tube that is put through your nose into ones throat through swallowing. Clogged meant this process over and over again. I lost count after tube number eight.

His arms couldn’t reach all he needed—green barf bags, ice chips, tissues, sanitizer, other small comforts. My speed was quick. Always alert. I called for meds. Explained what he preferred. Advocated for Sprite. Cleaned his beard. Wiped his face a hundred times a day. Kissed his lips a hundred times more. Washed his body. Learned how to massage his feet and legs to move the fluid that puffed up his body causing fluid to seap out of his skin closer to his torso with the idea it would come out of one of his 6 tubes. Asked questions. Repeated answers in simple terms. Connected with his care team. Became one of them. This was my job now: live-in caregiver with a minor in all nuanced procedures, surgeries, medication, IV nutrition, lab reading, anything and everything I could understand pertaining to him. I wasn’t going to be good at it—I was going to be great. I would bring him home and until then, he would never be alone. We rotated between hospital rooms. ICU, SICU, PICU, overflow when there were no rooms left and then our primary residence for liver and kidney patients, floor 8 West Pavillion. My suitcase, houseplants, oil diffuser and can wax melt being packed and hauled over and over again. Pieces of our home to make these rooms a bit more like us.

And still, the loop: “This is so fucking hard. How do people do this? I am so tired. So helpless. Keep going, Chelsea. He has it worse. He is so tired. He is in pain. He is helpless. He keeps going.”

I had become accustomed to these days. Strange to say “these days” when his death was only eight days ago. Seeing myself in that recliner chair, covered in our son’s NY Giant’s blanket. Helpers coming in and out. Most nights scary, a hundred times worse than I had ever seen. Terrifying. Medical intervention after intervention. Morning would come, I’d get dressed and put on skincare. Coffee. Back to the room for these events to continue. Try to eat. No specific time. Mostly Panera. Bread and soup. Over and over again. Back in the room. Medical care. Again and again until night came, when I would shower and if I was lucky, I’d get on the hospital room floor and stretch. Meditate. Pray. Living angels became our extended family. Helpers who were less angelic did too. We loved them. They love him. They loved me too. This became so organic the way that relationships do. Love. Open hearts. Humans being humanistic.

I can see each of their faces as I type these words. I smile and tear up. These beings who took care of him, saved his body over and over again, gently cared for him, prayed for him. At the end of his life in pallative care, they were our guest, our visitors a steady flow of helpers coming to say goodbye. Telling him they loved him and me that they they loved me and us. Our strange hospital family that was there during the worst part of our entire lives, saying goodbye because they cared.

I don’t want to forget—but it already feels so far away. Odd memories surface. I sob by his bedside table, where a box now holds what remains of his body. The box that unexpectly arrived on May 31st, our 16th wedding anniversary. The same box I hugged and melted into.

I see him proud, “Babe, they helped me brush my teeth.” I see his lips puckering, still accepting kiss after kiss even when his body no longer worked. His legs unmoving. His hands still. Eyes mostly closed except for an occasional slit. The rattle of his breath. His jaw wide open. The doctor said his facial muscles had surrendered. But when I kissed him, he kissed me back. And sighed. That soft sound of awe. Like I was a bite of his favorite dessert.

We held his hands—our teenage kids, our teenage niece, the one he said was his “first best friend” in my family, the family that became his. My sisters. My cousin, who’d once watched his own father’s long death. The room was full of living angels. Intentional. Quiet. Gentle. Open. Walking softly, sensing the unpredictable reactivity of grief. Like the day I had a panic attack and smashed my body into his bed, holding him like I could stop time. My chest pounded. My thoughts blurred into that familiar refrain: “This is so fucking hard. How do people do this? I am so tired. So helpless. Keep going, Chelsea. He has it worse. He is so tired. He is no longer in pain. He has peace. He is trusting you to keep going.”

I am grateful for the conversation with his doctor on the morning of his last day. I believed he had chosen this moment too soon. But this doctor—Dr. God, my mother-in-law called him—held space like only a true healer could. “He’s on a very low dose of morphine,” he told me. “Most people have three times as much. The meds for restlessness are also minimal. Many patients suffer existentially at the end. Your husband is at peace.”

I believed him. I trusted him. I was relieved. My husband, my Steve, had made his choice. He was ready for the next chapter—his spirit now infinite, everywhere and nowhere. His body, the one I adored. His voice, the one we all ache to hear. His long arms, the embrace we still long for. His brilliant brain, his beautiful mind. I lay next to him, wanting to absorb every final bit of his earthly being.

He is dead.

Now, when I close my eyes, I try to access his spirit. Sometimes it comes as a light flutter in my chest. Sometimes, there is only disbelief, anguish, and the dread of forgetting. My brain protects me, as brains do. “It wasn’t so bad. Cancer wasn’t that hard. The hospital was great. We had a routine.” The minimization creeps in. But I know the truth.

Memory- The director, MD of palliative care, words of truth: “You walked so slowly to the edge of the cliff. Then you walked along the edge for so long, just inches away from falling. You got used to life without illness being so far away.” Truth-We missed our children so much living 4.5 hours away, and that was its own grief.

Memory —UAB, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, had become his home. My home. Our home. That Edward Sharpe song he once dedicated to me when he mixed audio for them on tour—Home is wherever I’m with you—plays on a loop. Thought, “Oh, my sweet love, how I miss you.”

Since his death, the weighted blanket no longer holds me. I am now a broken piece of vintage china. Once bright, now chipped. Old. Worn out. Fragile. Barely able to do my job, to hold anything. Hoping not to have one more item placed on my plate.

Or maybe I’m a walking wound. My stomach wide open. My chest split. Bright red. Bleeding, but hidden by clothes. Dripping blood energetically all over the floor. Then the panic rushes in like no other—grief hijacking my entire nervous system. My breath gasps for air; my chest is a drum being pounded on, dizzy and lightheaded. I think again: “This is so fucking hard. How do people do this? I am so tired. So helpless.” And I remember: he kept going. Until he leaned in.

Now, I must follow him. I must lean in. Not to death, but to the loss of my husband. The permanency of this gaping internal hole. The death of what could’ve been. The death of dreams. Of our future. Of the father of our two incredible children.

His death evokes a different type of death in me. Parts of me will die because I will never be able to unfeel or unsee what I’ve witnessed.

I owe him. I owe him life, because he fought so hard for it. I owe him big time, because he didn’t stop living, and he never wanted us, his family, the ones he loved the most, ever to stop living. I owe myself rest. Grace so that I may live big again one day. For me. For us. For him.

The first morning I woke up alone in our bed, I heard the words: “We can rest now.” Not just me, but we. Him. It is counterintuitive not to jump out of bed. Counterintuitive to encourage self-rest after living on adrenaline for so many years.

We owe each other gratitude. We didn’t waste time. Cancer stripped us bare, and in doing so, we untangled everything that had ever come between the only thing that truly matters, love.

My love, you have been one of the greatest gifts in my life. My life will never be the same. But I now know the answers to my repeated thoughts: “This is so fucking hard. How do people do this? I am so tired. So helpless.”

Right now, the answer is simple:
Lean in.
Cry.
Beg. Plead. Bargain.
Give thanks.
Pray.
Talk to him.
Rest. Sleep. Eat.
Rest again.
Stay small.
Stay in the bigness of grief.
And eventually, when you're ready—
Let little bits of light back in. Over and over. Again and again.

And when it feels like too much to bear, I will wish for pink cotton candy skies and remember him and us together again.

The shared moments are raw. A mirror of the open wound—exposed tissue and flesh. But in these moments, we go straight into that wound and sit there. Keenly aware of the exposed tissue. The vulnerable, unhealed flesh. The lack of nutrients that risk this wound never healing. The blood and guts fully exposed. Immersed in utter vulnerability.

We talk about the decline of his health. The six tubes drawing bile from different parts of his body. The infection I’ve always feared more than the cancer itself. And the love—so much love. If God is love, then this must be the closest we’ve ever come. The words between resemble the most healing ointment. The pain is not pain because this remedy is acceptance and acceptance is ease. Ease is only there because we stay in the wound. No fighting or ignoring. Tending to this wound, perfectly attuned with gentle attentiveness of layer upon layer.

His eyes carry the depth of his complicated wounds. They tell the unspoken story of lived experiences—and yet carry the same softness our now sixteen-year-old son once had when he looked at me. That kind of love only a toddler gives, seeing perfection in an their imperfect mother. I remember him taking my face in his little hands with those same eyes his father has and telling me, “Mama, you are the most beautiful.” I couldn’t comprehend what he saw in me. Maybe another truth is this: God is seen in the soul of other human beings.

We talk until he—my husband, my great love—falls asleep. Unbothered by the oxygen forced into his lungs or the tube in his nose that goes down his throat pulling bile from his intestines. The only thing he asks is that his hand be uncovered, so I—his wife—can hold it. He wants me to talk, which makes me laugh since he once told me, “Talking is your favorite.” He asks me to “Run the tape through.” I know what he means. I share what I imagine life would look like. Life without illness. Loss of him physically. His love persistently there. I talk of future sadness, a hole that will always remind us that love wins. Then share what I know is most important, the goodness with our kids. I talk until his breath gets deeper and he drifts off to sleep. Peaceful.

These are such tender moments. Pure and unobstructed from God, the love we have been so lucky to have between us. We are layered in a kind of beautiful suffering only humans can understand. I accept the gift.

See me.

Hear not just my words,

but also the words I don’t say.

Listen to my energy.

Understand the truth through feelings.

Look into my eyes; they will tell you everything you need to know.

Be with me here, fully present.

Feel what I am offering—a piece of me.

It is in the moment of being revealed, no longer willing to wear a mask, that the true love story between humans begins.

Not just the romantic kind, but also the steady, unwavering love of deep friendship, or the moments with a stranger who is receptive to exposure of the tiny pieces of me. Only by diving into the depths of our beings can we discover the sacred bond of being truly seen.

This love lives in presence, in bearing witness, and in holding space.

These are the true love stories that shape us, providing the psychological safety necessary to grow, heal, and fulfill our needs. In revealing myself, you have the opportunity to be revealed too.

We are now offering the opportunity to tend to every exposed layer and piece and care for them in the most delicate, intentional ways, staying tethered in seeing.

Because love stories begin when we are exposed. In those honest moments, our inner selves come to the forefront, risking the discomfort of being seen through
sharing the thoughts and feelings we often keep hidden.

It’s in this space of vulnerability that real connection happens, bringing comfort, beauty, and a deep sense of belonging. The truest love stories we all hope for only when one risks being seen.

To me, bravery isn't about fearlessness. It's about doing what we know is right, even when it is uncomfortable, even terrifying, making our hearts race and our stomachs drop. It means wanting to leave your body but staying instead. Inhabiting all parts of one’s being.

Bravey is driven by something much larger than ourselves. It’s about aligning with our deepest values, our most authentic self, and acting—even when fear is loud and heavy, screaming at us to take the easier path. Bravery is not the absence of fear but the decision to move forward, guided by what matters most.

There are days when I don’t feel brave at all.
So I turn to stories—memoirs, true stories of individuals overcoming adversity, and history, especially those from World War II—tales of ordinary people who did unimaginably complex things—brutally hard things—things that are so vividly horrifically terrifying that my heart races with each word that I read. Then, after rapid page turning, I am forced to pause and breathe. I often contemplate how the actual fuck did they do that hard thing? But I know the truth, they didn’t do it because it was easy or because they were fearless. They did it because they felt those big feelings, held tight to their values, and responded accordingly.

It is essential to share my opinion that I do not suggest comparative suffering but rather inspiration, a pep talk, a reminder of hope, and the fact that humans are meant to do tough things. This also means compassionately acknowledging my suffering, no matter how high-quality the problem might be.

I recall story after story. Some stories are about breaking cycles of family dysfunction. Risking rejection and judgment by their closest kin. Others are about surviving unbearable loss—losing every person they loved and still choosing to love, to fight, to rise. I've read about women who risk their lives for a better world for their daughters, about men who use their privilege to protect those whose voices are dismissed or silenced, and about children, statistically set up to fail, who somehow find the strength to keep moving forward against every adversity.

I deeply admire every personal or professional caregiver who commits to the self-work required to grow. Because bettering yourself is one of the bravest things you can do, it’s what separates those who provide care from their highest sense of self from those who care is disconnected. And from those high-vibrating human beings, that kind of care is contagious — others can feel it, deep in their bones. I call those humans living angels. They somehow float between both realms of humanness and spirituality.

I think of the kids who stay true to themselves even when their peers try to mold them.
The sick and traumatized who keep choosing life, even in the depths of despair, for the people they love are their truest, most authentic “why” of their being. I reflect on those who show up with grace, who bite their tongues not out of weakness but out of wisdom. They choose peace over the fleeting satisfaction of reactive words.

I witness bravery with every human who crosses my path, saying, “I need help. I don’t have the answers.” That type of vulnerability brings me to tears. I recall family therapy sessions where I teach that bravery is as simple and complex sitting with another's despair knowing damn well that there is absolutely nothing you can do but sit there.

I contemplate the humans who bravely build boundaries — who choose truth over people-pleasing, wholeness over pretending, healing over self-abandonment. Those who bravely practice acceptance of what is over and over again. That is courage.

Love yourself enough to change? That’s love in action. Staying true to the path of authenticity while unraveling the fabric of one’s life and learning how to do better—how to be better—is magic—the contagion of healing. It spreads to every human you meet. Self-love heals the deepest wounds—our wounds and the wounds we pass onto others.

Maybe that’s the truest form of bravery: being willing to keep showing up for love, knowing that one’s heart will be fully exposed repeatedly. That, my friend, might be the bravest act of all.

I once knew a man who ate glass.
I don’t remember his name, but I remember him vividly.

The memory no longer distant. Me, in my twenties. Tall, long blonde hair, youthful wearing black cigarette pants and likey some cute tight top with black platform heels fully immersed in this party.
Our house decorated for a Singles Valentine’s Day gathering— paper hearts cut from construction paper covering the walls each saying some inappropriate innuendo for the day of love. Party strings. A DJ spinning music that felt too loud for the size of the room and was likely even louder the condo owner next door shared living room wall. Every inch of the kitchen counters cluttered with bottles of cheap alcohol.

Then: the crash of a bottle breaking.

And him — a young man, mid-twenties, sturdy in frame and height, brown shaggy hair, dressed in all black, like he belonged to some forgotten 90s band — walking calmly over, picking up a shard of broken glass, and without hesitation, putting it in his mouth.

Chewing it. Swallowing it. Eating glass. I remember being stunned — my face frozen in disbelief. The thoughts that raced through my mind: What is wrong with this human?

The image of his insides being cut. The fear that caused my heart to drop right into the pit of my belly when I had the fleeting thought, what if this gets stuck in his throat?

And then I come back to the present moment. This memory, a movie trailer clip, has come to an abrupt end. In this moment, I'm not eating glass, but can’t stop thinking that the exact feeling that resides within me mirrors what it would be like to eat glass.

My throat is raw and dry.
My chest feels like it’s being sliced from the inside.
Each breath cuts a little deeper down through my diaphragm, into my stomach.
The blood — invisible but real — a reminder of my current pain.

The clinical term pops into my head: vicarious trauma. Vividly aware that attuned, empathic hearts will feel another human's suffering, whether from physical injury or emotional agony, as though it is happening to them. Because the pain is.

No barrier. No distance. Just pain — shared, absorbed.

A new movie trailer clip. I am rewatching yesterday—the pain in his grey-blue eyes. “Keep your eyes on me,” I say. Watching anguish, panic, and physical pain.

“Breathe with me. In through your nose, baby. Keep your mouth closed. Eyes on me.”

Breathe. The alarm alerts scream, beep, and flash red on the machines. His blood pressure is too high. His oxygen levels are rapidly dropping. Heartbeat now 165. Eyes on me.

“I’m going to have to put this in your artery,” Jason says. I know this man. He is on the MET team (Medical Emergency Team). I met him and the others just 5 days earlier during my husband’s internal bleed that spilled out of him externally. The needle is big.

“Baby, keep looking at me. Breathe.” IV meds are administered in the other arm. They work around me. Never asking me to leave his bed or let go of his hand.

Machines continue to scream. Constant chatter of communication—directives, information, speculation. “Sepsis.” “Keep looking at me.”

He is scared. I am afraid, too. He is confused. Me too. We stare into each other's eyes, but much deeper because I can see his soul. I wonder if he can see mine. The intensity between us is palpable. His eyes convey wordless trust, fragile and sacred.

Death by a thousand cuts—I think of the psychological description of watching someone you love suffer slowly, helplessly. It feels like eating broken glass.

And just like that, my mind flashes back 20 years ago, to that young man chewing glass at a party, surrounded by music and laughter that covered up so much unseen pain.

I wonder where he is now.
What his insides look like.
I wonder if he ever healed.

I wonder if his eating glass was his way of proving a pain he didn’t know how else to show — and I wonder, too, how many of us are walking around looking fine, looking normal, while inside we are shredded and bleeding, carrying wounds no one else can see.

And then, my thoughts turn inward.
I wonder if I will ever be the same.
I wonder what my husband’s insides look like now — if he will ever truly heal from so many physical cuts.
If he escapes death this time, will it be enough to heal my invisible cuts?

I decide that in this moment, survival means we both will bleed — but bleeding means we are still alive.
So I hold fiercely to the truth I know in my bones: cuts heal.
And it will be my work, not to willingly eat broken glass, but to trust that healing is possible.

Maybe this is what love means: togetherness. We are never separate, our hearts and minds intertwined, never quite knowing where one of us ends and the other begins. I used to view this connection as unhealthy, proud of my separateness, until I became her, me, them—tangled in the fabric of the blanket that is us.

Summer camp—the scent of a fresh, clean lake. Summer camp—the night sky filled with stars, the moon, and planets. Summer camp—startled awake with my heart racing.

Summer camp—feces in bed. Summer camp—blue gloves, wet wipes, fresh sheet, clean bed. Summer camp- I am an assistant, the restroom is too far for him to be safe. Summer camp- untangle IV’s, roll the cart, hold him sturdy, he is a fall risk. Summer camp—waiting, wide awake at 3 a.m. when he calls my name, so I can walk him back to bed.

Summer camp—I hold his body, embracing all 230 lbs of him. Summer camp- we slow dance in the darkness beneath the stars, the moon, and the dim light. Just for a few seconds, maybe a minute. All is right in this world. Summer camp—I help him into bed and take my place in the recliner beside him.

Summer camp—we hold hands. “I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else,” he says. “Do what?” I tease, knowing he is referring to this hospital experience as our summer camp—quite literally sitting in the mess together.

We laugh about the absurdity of what we now call summer camp. Both of us long for this summer camp to end so we can be under the real stars and sky instead of the nightlight, breathing fresh air rather than melted candle wax, and sleeping in our home in our bed.

Summer camp is still happening. So we hold hands, as that is what one does when they are no longer separate but a pair. We stay in it—through the medical complications, secret winks, unspoken words, bodily fluids, bile, blood, and smells that are always okay, because everything is okay when two become one, and summer camp is still happening, and so are we.

Bare-faced, with sun-streaked hair and a golden suntan, this is my favorite version of myself. I find joy in walking on the beach, lying in the sand, and floating in the warm, calm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

I watch crabs crawling along the shore, amused by their cuteness and listen to the birds as I see families of small, white sandpipers scurrying by the waves. I observe smiling families laughing in the water while kids play in the sand. My heart feels full of gratitude. It is in this particular body of water that I truly feel at home within myself. This setting reminds me of how small I am in the grand scheme of things, allowing me to appreciate so much more than just my own existence.

I admire the pink clouds, feel the sun warming my skin, and breathe in the salty air. A blue heron stands still, gazing out at the sea—a reminder to be present and to pause, taking in the vast expanse of light blue and green that stretches before me. This imagery represents the happiest version of me: simple, hopeful, and connected to something greater than just being human.

I reflect on my journey: the shedding, the undoing, the embracing, the compassion, the trials, the failures, the ruminating, and the determination to try again. This path of self-discovery leads to essential truths that allow me to return to the essence of who I truly am. I understand that this lifetime may not give me all the time necessary to unearth the simplicity of my core being.

I then had an epiphany: We need both smallness and bigness in our lives to shed what doesn't matter. For me, this realization is rooted in being in the Gulf of Mexico—a reminder of my smallness in God's vast world.

But oddly, right now, I find myself as that little, small version of me in a hospital recliner, confined to a room that smells of cleaning products, illness, and bleach. Yet, it is in this very room that there is such greatness, too.

I look at the beige walls and big windows sealed shut, offering no hope of fresh air, but the sky, trees, and clouds are still there. The relentless humming and beeping of medical machines are assisting to save the life of the man, my husband, lying in bed next to my chair.

I witness the surreal diversity of the medical professionals around me, all dedicated to helping the physically sick—a reflection of God’s creation. Some are living angels, while others may be much further away from their own process of undoing.

It is in the process of discarding what truly doesn’t matter and recognizing the delusion that I have control over anything in this life apart from my own behaviors. It is the reality that I cannot know what I simply do not know, but I can always find awe and beauty if I stay right there, right here in this present moment, knowing that I am being held by both what I can and cannot see.

This chapter of my life requires the both/and- to surrender and to make a conscious choice of how I respond. It means radical acts of self-listening, observing, and remaining curious. It entails an unwavering commitment to keeping my heart and mind connected, focusing on my intuition, my body, and my faith to keep being exactly right here, in this time, in this place, knowing too well that if I lose myself, there will be nothing left to give. In this chapter, in all of these minutes that have turned past days into weeks, I need to give all of me. I want to because that is the most true thing I know in the soul of my being.

The truth is contagious. The opposite of the lie that wants to say, “how much more is left to me to give?” I know the opposite is true, that there is more to give both in and outside of this room. But only if I stay in truth. I can spread kindness behaviorally at any second I choose, and so this is what I do: smile when I want to look down. Gift the nurses pastries and fresh flowers. Push the man with missing legs in his wheelchair to the cafeteria. Try to make the world just a little softer despite the thickness of a complicated disease. And it comes full circle with love and support from so many humans far away physically, yet the closeness of care resides here, in this room in my body, sitting in my heart, reminding my head that I am not alone.

This contagion will have the opportunity to carry on and on, into minutes that will turn to days and days into weeks, knowing that there will one day be simpler days of less painful undoing.

I look forward to the moment we exit this sterile room so I can gift myself the experience of being back on that beach—my toes in the sand, admiring the scenery, breathing deeply, feeling grounded, and surrounded by the beauty of the world around me. This part will heal me once again.

My thoughts race quickly; I feel on guard and hyperaware. There’s a conflict between the desire to stare and the urge to look away. I want to reach down and touch her dirt-covered face to ask if she is okay, but I already know she isn’t. The visible signs of addiction, homelessness, and mental illness are unmasked and, unfortunately, prevalent throughout downtown Birmingham. I know both in my heart, and logically, there is nothing I can do.

A nurse dressed in red scrubs looks helpless, knowing, and concerned all at once. She, too, is entering the same elevator we need to take to get to the main hospital floor. I make eye contact with her and confirm the words she says: that she will handle it and get some help. My feelings are stagnant; there is no relief because there is nothing that any helper can actually provide.

Our son’s deep blue eyes carry a depth that keeps me wondering where he is emotionally. These are old eyes, wide eyes, wise eyes, eyes that have seen too much. I beat myself up when I caught his serious eyes, which were less and less shiny. Shiny eyes-eyes that twinkle with excitement, awe, and delight, eyes filled with curiosity and awe. His eyes have remained wise, but I rarely see the shine.

When I look back on pictures, I see those twinkles. But as he grew older, he learned adult things that made the depth grow even more profound and the shine further away. I suppose most mothers feel guilt when they have caused harm to their children or cannot protect them from the realities of what it is to be human. But just because guilt is a common feeling doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t do anything in the entire world to give him back the shine that has been placed so far away.

He is taller than me now. He is handsome, with a thick head of brown hair and straight big teeth. His hands are huge, and his arms are lanky. He hasn’t quite filled into his adult body; that will happen, I suppose, over the next few years. Both his father and I were late bloomers.

He rolls my black luggage and carries several other bags that belong to me, his mother. We say no words at all in the elevator. We only look and feel the unspoken words between us, between the heaviness of these moments of reality. The reality is that his father is day 20 in the hospital and 3+ years into a battle with cancer. The reality of human suffering, some getting help on the floors where this elevator will take us and some wondering blank-eyed or wild-eyed around town. All things a dim light enhancing images of human suffering. His emotional journey is one of struggle and growth, and it's essential for me, his mother, to seek to understand and empathize with it.

He wants to be strong and keep everything inside. He understands that this idea of strength often leads to angry men. His mother, a therapist, has warned him about suppressing big feelings. I have also reminded him that true strength lies in the ability to feel and express emotions healthily. There is nothing braver than feeling your feelings and letting another in. Nothing is braver than asking for help and accepting support. The false belief to suck it up and hold it in that is placed on humans is a weakness—an intolerance to vulnerability that cannot withstand the sharpness of genuine emotional depth.

When vulnerability is suppressed, it often manifests in other harmful ways: aggression, displacement, stubbornness, judgment, contempt, avoidance, numbing, and various other coping mechanisms that dull the richness of life and create disconnection. Disconnection leads to isolation on the inside and sometimes the outside too. The simple fact is that we were not meant to do this life alone.

Miles, our boy, our sweet son, has always been an empath susceptible to catching contagious emotions and internalizing them as though they are his. As a young child, maybe 4 or 5 years old, he would pray. I asked him what he prayed for, and he would say things like kids in the hospital, a kid at school whose father died in a car accident, and people with illnesses—things I didn’t even know he knew were his regular prayers. His poor emotions would be so dysregulated that I spent years trying to teach him how to differentiate others' feelings from his. And so, of course, those shiny eyes that now feel so far away have been impacted by his mother's emotional contagion.

My approach is gentle, intentional, and direct. It involves connecting, normalizing, validating, and holding space for his feelings. Walking while we talk has always made the vulnerability easier. I begin by identifying the emotions he is trying to suppress. “It’s tough to witness mental illness, isn’t it? Seeing human suffering and feeling conflicted because I want to help makes my heart sad. Often, mental illness combined with addiction can be unpredictable and dangerous.” He nods, and that's when the tea spills. He begins to share everything—the way he feels walking down the hospital corridors, the smell of the hospital that bothers him, the people he has seen on the street, and the despair that envelops him from being surrounded by illness. The sadness and heaviness weigh on him. “I hate it,” he says.

I can normalize the headache he woke up with, acknowledging all the thoughts he is holding inside and all that he is trying to sort out through his brain. I recognize the stress of him being just sixteen years old, navigating his first week of driving alone and making a 4.5-hour drive to Birmingham to see his father while also competing in a jujutsu tournament nearby. On top of this, he has been driving his sister, our daughter, back and forth to work, and she, too, has a volleyball tournament that happens to be nearby as well. He is adulting fast, which is both a blessing and sad. I am so very proud of him and of both of them.

He reflects on the previous five days when he visited and found his father, who was lost in the chaos of auditory and visual hallucinations, unable to string together more than a few coherent words.

Although his father, my husband, is finally lucid, his body does not function properly. His legs cannot move in a way that allows him to get around. The lack of mobility, combined with strong antibiotics treating his bile infection, has led to bowel issues while he is in bed. His body is weak, but his mind is in the process of healing. He is sharp and mentally alert yet struggles to follow his son's words—our son.

This grown man is dressed in a blue hospital gown, paired with bright yellow traction socks that match the thick, bright yellow armband reading "FALL RISK." He has a PICC line for various fluids, antibiotics, liquid nutrition, blood transfusions, breakthrough morphine, and multiple tubes for blood draws. His arms are covered in bruises, and our son cannot bear to see what has happened surgically beneath the gown.

The men in our family are brave, determined, and stubborn. Miles, our son, is here because he loves his dad. His courage and determination will enable him to push through the desire to protect himself by leaving. He accepts vulnerability to ensure his wish to spend time with his favorite person—his dad.

We enter the hospital room, P830, and it is then that my boy and his father connect. For a split second, all is right in the world while being so wrong at the same time. Emotions are contagious, and love, hope, connection, family, and illness are all wrapped into a red brick that sits heavily on my chest.

We are only in the room for a few minutes when a tall, young man with kind green eyes and a nose ring enters the room wearing blue scrubs. He has come to bathe my husband, and this will be our cue to leave. I know that our tender-hearted boy will never be able to unsee what he will see, so I do what mothers do when they don’t know what to do. I suggest it is time to eat. Knowing how easy it is to lose the desire for food with everything happening.

We walk together—my boy, our boy. No longer just a boy but a man. Down the hallways with the smell he hates and the fluorescent lighting that makes us feel dizzy. Down the elevators that feel rickety. Down to the bottom floor, where the fried rice is still covering the floor, but the body of the woman is no longer there. We walk out the door and nearly knock into her. She is now walking around with wild eyes that match her wild hair.

I feel old when we walk through downtown Birmingham together, almost like an elderly woman with a young man beside her as her protector. It’s an odd feeling since I am only 47, but I lean into the safety of being with a young, strong male. We talk and process our thoughts, and I share my years of working in a psychiatric ward as the first contact after desperate individuals have attempted to take their own lives or were caught in the dangerous world of paranoid psychosis. I talk about my experiences working with addiction. The multiple deaths that impacted me to my core. The years working with trauma and how I had to take a break from the grittiness of severe mental illness. He listens, absorbs it all, and asks questions. Then he says, “I wouldn’t want to do this,” referencing working in a hospital or living in poverty in downtown Birmingham.

To which I reply, “I understand.” I explain my "why." I do this in hopes of softening his despair by going to my own truth. When one person gets better, it gives me hope and helps me push through the heaviness of despair that can feel overwhelming. The best thing about hope is that it’s contagious. When one person overcomes something hard, another person receives the message that they, too, can do hard things. I tell him about the surgeons who play God and are using their spiritual gifts to save lives and extend years through their clinical expertise. I share stories of the living angels who walk among us—like the elderly woman who cleans his hospital room the same way I clean our home or Gage, the nurse who bathed his father today. I talk about the nurses who smell fresh and clean and how that brings his dad a sense of normalcy. I recount story after story of these living angels who, through their choice to work in healthcare, provide kindness, physical care, and comfort to the individuals in society we all hope never to be.

It makes me wonder: What if the woman on the floor by the elevator had more living angels in her life? What if she felt the contagious emotion of hope and could see a way through? How would it be if her exposed emotional wounds were surgically treated and she had the desire to live?

I wonder how it would be if I had never ended up as a caretaker of a man I love. I wonder how it would be if he didn’t want to live or wasn’t able to overcome his own aversion to vulnerability. I wonder what it would have been like if I had shut down.

How much easier life can be when ignorance is bliss, and how intense life became when I was tasked with the opportunity to be a life vest. Being a life vest is shaky, meaningful, cold, dark, and scary, and it is also rewarding because even the smallest micro-moments feel like awe.

I reflect on how far away cancer was because it had never been so close to me. It was never a thought in my mind. Trauma: I expected it would happen because that is what I was familiar with, but a stage 4 cancer medical diagnosis was never in my wildest dreams. I am no longer ignorant of the fact that any of us can be just a short distance away from an unexpected tidal wave that takes us far out to sea. One moment, enjoying the view with quality problems; the next moment, nothing else matters except getting through the wave.

Lord, help me to love deeply. Let me keep my heart open, even when I feel the urge to shield it from pain.

Lord, grant me courage. Help me to face uncertainty and continue to show up, as this is within my control. Lord, teach me to give grace. The grace I extend to myself will flow out to others as well.

Lord, allow me to see you. Let me look up to the sky and notice the small things that remind me of my faith, both in the seen and the unseen.

Lord, guide me to speak the truth. Help me to say the difficult things when I feel most uncomfortable, for that is when it matters most.

Lord, remind me of miracles. Encourage me to embrace the truth that miracles are our birthright and to expect them to occur.

Lord, let me find rest. May I close my eyes comfortably, knowing that you are watching over, protecting, and holding me when I can no longer bear to see.

Two small children huddle in the corner of the room—one dark-skinned with brown curls peeking out from beneath a baseball cap. Behind them, an elderly woman, likely their grandmother, watches over them from further away.

The walls are carelessly painted, the uneven coats failing to conceal the faded remnants of children’s games sketched on the wall—ghostly echoes of a room that once served a different purpose.

His eyes, which I once called "bedroom eyes," no longer meet mine with the same present connection. They drift past me, staring at specters I cannot see—visions of another reality.

Mid-sentence questioning is lost in the air as though in conversation with invisible beings—a response to internal stimuli, voices only he can hear.

Nothing is normal.

His body is no longer his own. Two 16-inch incisions carve down his abdomen, angular sliced flesh held together with meticulously placed staples, embedded in caked, dried blood with the goal of healing. Red burns of irregular shapes and size scatter the top of his chest. Dull, yellow blisters bloom—remnants of the eight-hour invasion of scalpels and hands intentionally cutting into fragile tissue, an effort to give my husband the best chance at life.

Moans of pain and torment seep from his lips. His body jolts, stiffens, trembles. His mouth gapes open, but words remain trapped inside—pain unmanaged, suffering unspoken. His eyes pleading with tears that never fall.

The clear thin tube from his nostril, spirals upward with brown bile into a bucket with a blue lid that dangles from the wall. The tube is hypnotic, a grotesque science experiment. The body, indifferent to nature’s intentions, is concerned only with it’s innate survival. It fills the void left by the missing organ with fluid. Infection has opportunity in this new place. A well known risk that layers my existing concerns.

Nothing is normal.

Machines chime in rhythmic intervals. A knock at the door mimics politeness, an illusion of permission. Strangers filter in and out. They all wear medical scrubs and most wear hair covers. Shift after shift brings different staff, their faces blur into fuzziness. I am grateful they write their names on the white board.

The same questions are asked, over and over: “How do you feel?” “What is your pain level?” “Did you do X, Y, Z?” There may be a lecture about not enough walking or my husband eating too many ice chips. Concerns about his choice to lay in the bed rather than sitting in the chair.

Nothing is normal.

I am dressed for a life that no longer fits. The scent of my 14-year-old daughter lingers on me—Bath and Body Works Pink Champagne. Chanel perfume clings to my skin. I smell like her. I smell like me. The familiar scents comfort me.

Starbucks Venti Blonde coffee drank two times per day, swirled with collagen powder and a protein shake. I feel so responsible with my diligence in packing protein. My attempt to be awake and not crash.

Two days of survival, sustained by handfuls of trail mix. Food feels too far away and I fear leaving him on his own. Ordering to the room isn’t an option since eating in front of another human who is forbidden to eat seems cruel.

Nothing is normal.

I remain vigilant at his bedside, attuned to every noise, every shift.

He calls my name. "Chelsea."

I jolt upright, my chest lurching forward from the gray plastic couch that is both a couch and a bed. My heart pounds, breath catching.

Is he okay? Did he vomit? Does he have a fever? Did he fall? Did he rip out one of the tangled tubes that tether him to life?

Nothing is normal.

Advocate. Explain. Quantify. Provide evidence. Listen. Probe. Reiterate. Build rapport. Pretend to agree. Walk away. Cry. Vent. Swear. Repeat.

Remind, remind, remind. Ask. Ask. Ask. I am the voice that he needs. Stay ahead of the pain. Please be on time. Did he take X, Y, Z? Can I get new sheets? The room needs cleaning. Can I speak with the nurse? When will the liver team do rounds?

Nothing is normal.

My body cycles through fight, flight, freeze, comply. Wired. Disoriented. Vision blurred by exhaustion. Deprived of sleep, I know no gentle awakenings.

Hand on my chest, one deep inhale— Instant slumber. A quick startle, and I’m physically up and moving once again. Rinse. Repeat.

Minutes bleed into hours, hours dissolve into days. The outside world fades. Day to day life is so very far away.

Everything is normal.

I take my nightly shower, erasing the remnants of the day. I slather on lotion.

Skincare routine. Brush. Floss.

Cozy sweatpants. Sweatshirt. Fuzzy socks. Furry blankets. All gifts sent from friends cocoon me.

Everything is normal.

I act as if. I must believe that I am still me. Because belief, even when false, creates the illusion of stability.

I engage in conversation that is his reality. This gives me the connection I so desperately need and reminds me of my days working in the psychiatric ward. His behavior scarring me. Amusing. Curious and so childlike that I am reminded of our now teenage kids when they had such little bodies and such big imaginations. There is a sweetness to what he sees.

I am not normal.

I steady my husband’s 6’4", 230-pound frame, maneuvering his silver cart filled with IV fluids, antibiotics, and machines that never cease their incessant beeping, assisting him to walk because walking is a goal and that goal is hard after such a massive surgery.

I make small talk with the nurse—words that mean nothing, because nothing matters in this chaotic, mess of uncertainty called recovery. The one step forward that is a few hours of relief countered with the whiplash of 3 steps back make my usual words with meaning, meaningless.

Body fluids no longer make me gag. I flick on my phone’s flashlight, meticulously inspecting each piece of cut flesh. I know what infection looks like. I no longer turn my head away because this is my new normal.

I am no longer normal.

I know more medical terminology than I ever wanted to comprehend. The statistics. The science. I am well versed in rectal cancer that has spread to the liver. I understand the nuances of a disease that could steal years of life with the man I love.

I will never unsee what my eyes have been pried open to see even when I yearn to squeeze them tightly shut. The ripples of human suffering from illness surround me. The loved ones waiting, supporting, walking alongside the crashing waves that took over their lives, a brutal tide of suffering.

My normal is gone.

I yearn for the past versions of hardship—the fear, the sickness, the entrapment that once felt unbearable but now seems like mercy. I once begged for this surgery. We prayed for it. Now I long for the days before our new version of difficulty, when the hard felt impossible but was still manageable.

But I know better now.

Unwanted knowledge. Unwelcome wisdom.

This is my normal. A women who loves a man and is fiercely determined for the direction to change.

A women who presses lettered computer keys, an attempt to spell out the words embedded in her heart and capture the images in her mind, untangling the complexities in hopes of making sense of this life of being human.

The lump in my breast has been something that I have wanted to ignore. “God wouldn't give two adults cancer. It would be too cruel for our children. For them to already have a father with cancer and now their mother!” Yet, I know that cancer doesn't come from God. We live in a man's world—a world of free will, and I believe God can do miracles in man’s world, so I ask for favor. Please let this lump be nothing.

The feeling of hardness and discomfort each time I lie on my stomach or do a stretch that puts pressure on my side is a reminder of my body is not quite right. My sleep doesn't shut off this knowing, and restless sleep is fueling the anger I feel. I make up my mind that if I too have cancer, I will be furious at God.

I get my exam. I don't have cancer. I do have a lump. It is likely my hormones. I'm okay. My nervous system needs to realign, so I immediately seek comfort next door at Pet Smart. Yes, the store Pet Smart. Because at this pet store, there are rescue cats and kittens.

I never knew I was a cat person. I only discovered this after feeding what I thought were feral cats that I found particularly magical, similar to wild animals. I fed those neighborhood cats with the hope that one day I would tame one enough to hold it.

The joke was on me since three of the four cats I was feeding belonged to the next door neighbor. I cannot stop laughing about this, but this led to my obsession with a cat, and my kids were magnetic about this obsession, which resulted in us adopting a kitten.

Priya, beautiful, fluffy, tuxedo Priya. A kitten who can only be petted on her terms, whose love language is play, and if we are really lucky, she will crawl on our sleeping bodies and gently push her claws out over our faces to seek pets. Her purr is loud, and I have always imagined this vibration to be healing. We adore her. Priya, pink nose, puffy tail. Standoffish, beautiful Priya.

I am back to the place where my life changed for the better. The place where, if I am lucky, a volunteer will be working, and they will let me sit and play with the cats. I need to reconnect with safety and land back in my body. I need to soothe my nervous system. Pet Smart, it's the perfect place.

She's small, with black silk fur and white paws. A skinny little thing, her hip bones jut out like a '90s model when the heroin-chic look was popular. Her eyes look huge in comparison to her slight body and are a golden color with a hint of green, reminiscent of tarnished copper pennies.

She is sweet and curious. When I pat the bench I am sitting on, she jumps up to get pet. The other cats hiss at her, and she is unbothered. I find myself curious too—petting this waif kitten, wondering if adopting a friend for Priya, our cat who’s love language is play would be the right thing to do. “Am I high on the feeling of landing back into safety? Would getting another cat be a mistake? Could I possibly love her the same way I love Priya?” I fill out the paperwork, go through the process, and take her home. Kade is her given name.

The house smells like the worst, most rotten, and gutted feces I have ever encountered. I am a clean freak, and I can’t handle it. To top it off, Priya does not want a new friend. I have never seen her hiss and I feel like I’ve betrayed her. This guilt combined with the smell of rot, has my mind racing that I have made a terrible, terrible mistake.

I am reassured that I did not make a mistake on the night that I fell in love with her. It was the first night she slept in our room with the bedroom door closed. The same night where the horrendous smell of rotten insides woke me from my sleep searching for what I knew would be terrible; she had diarrhea all over the bathroom throw rug and had tried to bury it, as evidenced by the rug being semi-folded. That was it—the moment I fell in love. I felt a wave of pity for her combined with the knowing that this sweet kitten had tried to make the rug her little box was all I needed to see her all things innocent and good. I love her. She is sick and needs to go to the vet.

Giardia is the diagnosis, and the requirements for kitten quarantine, with detailed instructions, are to keep her isolated in the bathroom, clean her bottom, change her bowls after she eats, throw out all the litter in the box after each use, bleach everything several times a day, and most importantly, give her medicine. Sidebar, fun fact: I had no idea that cats do not take medicine like dogs do. "That was fun!" said no one ever. There are two types of liquid medicine given two times a day that Kade holds in her mouth and spits out everywhere. I cry with relief that she can be treated. I cry with overwhelm that this is something that feels impossible in my already impossible-feeling life.

It is mean to put a cat recently released from cat prison back in prison. The bathroom is small. The smell of disinfectant and illness is trying, but I vow to not leave her alone. This means setting up a TV dinner tray to act as a makeshift computer desk where I use the toilet as a seat so that I can be with her and work. I add a cat scratcher, a blanket, and a toy ghost on a stick for her to play with. The days are long. The illness is gross.

She is miserable and at night shoves items under the bathroom door for us to wake up to every morning. The bathtub plug, her stick ghost, rubber bands, part of the towel she sleeps on. Priya is now putting her paws underneath the bathroom door trying to get to Kade. It is hard. My hands become red and raw from all the cleaning. The room reeks of Lysol but we make it through the 14 days. Back to the new world, her new world, our whole home where she and Priya fall in love and even our 11 year old dog sometimes plays. Our family is whole and I am so grateful.

For nearly six weeks after quarantine, she carried this little ghost stick. She’d put it in our bed, in her food bowl, and flings it around. We called it her emotional support stick. That was until the stick broke, and it was only the ghost. Then she carried that ghost around like I used to carry that silky blanket.

Emotional support objects—these are the things that comfort us. This little ghost reminds me of the power that comes from the items that supported us and gave us comfort and meaning. As a kid, it was my silky blanket; as an adult, it’s my silky cat.

I wonder if she knows the comfort she provides me? I wonder if she realizes that on so many sleepless nights, her warm body and soft purr contain my worries and bring me back to the present moment. I wonder if she knows that seeing her first thing in the morning makes my day, and that throughout the day, whenever I am off balance and need to reconnect, I can pet her. I wonder if she knows that saving her actually saves me, over and over again. This sweet little magical being.