Anticipating grief

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with loving someone who is still here.

A grief that begins long before goodbye.

A grief that sits beside you at dinner, rides with you in the car, and sleeps in the next room.

Because terminal illness doesn’t just take a life.
It slowly changes it.
And those who love them bear witness to every loss along the way.

My sister is still here.

But cancer is steadily asking more of her and more of those who love her.

As her primary caregiver, her person, her sister, I spend my days helping her navigate what this disease has stolen while trying to preserve what remains.

As a nurse, I’ve walked beside countless families through this journey.

Yet nothing prepares your own heart when it’s your family.
When it’s your person.

There are no clinical skills for this part.

No textbook chapter on watching someone you love slowly surrender pieces of themselves while you stand helplessly beside them.

So I pray.
I support.
I advocate.
I comfort.
I carry what I can.

But some nights, I find myself wondering:

Who comforts the comforter?

Whose shoulder do I rest my head on when I’ve spent so much time being a place for others to lean?

Because while grief is asking much of me, life has not paused.

I am still Mom.
Still working full-time.
Still preparing to permanently raise the toddler cousin who already calls my heart home.

And somewhere in the middle of all of this, I am navigating menopause, becoming acquainted with a version of myself I have never met before.

Some days I feel strong.

Other days I feel stretched so thin that even breathing feels like work.

But I keep showing up.

Not because I’m fearless.
Not because I’m strong all the time.

But because love requires things from us that comfort never will.

If you’re carrying a burden no one sees…
If you’re grieving someone who is still alive…
If you’re holding everyone together while quietly falling apart yourself…

I see you.

I am reminding myself of the same thing I would tell you:

You do not have to carry all of this alone.

~micaiah

The Weight of the Hold

It’s the disrespect of the timing,

the way it ignores the “all clear” we celebrated in November.

It didn’t just knock; it broke down the door,

bringing its uninvited chaos into rooms where we were finally starting to breathe again.

So now, the air sits heavy in my lungs,

a jagged stone I’m forced to carry while I play the roles:

the worker, the parent, the nurse-sister , the encourager, the pillar.

Learning to Exhale

But you can’t hold a ghost of a breath forever.

Learning to exhale isn’t about letting go of the anger,

I want to keep that fire; it’s the only thing that feels honest right now.

It’s about realizing that if I don’t let the air out,

there is no room for the strength I need to sit by her side.

Exhaling is the quietest form of rebellion.

It is saying: You may have taken the peace of November,

and you may be trying to take her body,

but you will not have my ability to simply be here nor her will to fight.

So I breathe out the “why us” and the “not again,”

just for a second,

not because the world is better,

and certainly not because cancer deserves any grace,

but because my sister needs me to have oxygen in my lungs as we battle to dominate the cancer in hers.

We rinse, we repeat, we fight.

But first, we let the breath go.

Even if it shakes. Even if it hurts.

~Micaiah

Why ask why?

We’re taught not to question the Almighty. To accept. To bow our heads. To trust without trembling.

But if He knows my heart… if He knows my thoughts before they ever form on my tongue… doesn’t He already know my questions too?

I find it impossible, as a human wrapped in human emotions, not to ask why when bad things happen to good people. And yes, I understand that “good” can be debated. None of us are perfect. But I’m talking about the ones who live gently. The ones who work hard, tend to their families, mind their business, show up for others, try to leave rooms softer than they found them. The ones who do inherently good simply because it’s in them to do so.

Why must the good suffer?

Why cancer? Why the slow violence of chemotherapy, a treatment that often feels more offensive and destructive than the very disease it’s meant to eradicate? Why the indignity of fatigue that steals your strength, the nausea that robs you of appetite, the hair that falls in quiet surrender? Why must the body endure a war on two fronts?

It is a particular kind of helplessness to watch someone you love suffer. To stand beside hospital beds and infusion chairs with nothing but prayers and presence. To offer words that feel small against the weight of a diagnosis. “I’m here.” “I love you.” “We’re believing.” And sometimes those words feel like feathers trying to hold back a storm.

Yet time after time, that is what we do. We pray. We support. We show up. Because we believe prayer changes things. Because even when I question the why behind it all, one thing I never question is my ability to trust fully in the Almighty. I do not understand His timing. I do not understand His methods. But I trust His heart. And I believe in Him for full healing for those I love who are afflicted.

Right now, that someone is my sister.

She fought one hell of a battle against triple negative breast cancer. She endured it. Conquered it. Had a clear scan this past November. We exhaled. We praised. We dared to imagine the worst was behind us.

Only for that sneaky, sick disease to circle back and attack her lung and liver.

And here we are again.

We’re already claiming victory. We’re already speaking healing. But we are also human, and it’s exhausting to have to suit up for war twice. It’s disheartening to realize the fight isn’t finished. It’s frustrating to see someone so strong forced back into the ring.

Make no mistake, she is one hell of a fighter. Resilient. Determined. Courageous in ways that humble me. I just wish she didn’t have to be. I wish her strength could be used for joy instead of survival. But like people in hell want ice water, we deal with the hand we’re dealt. We don’t get to choose the battlefield, only how we stand on it.

So we stand again.

We question, yes.

We grieve, yes.

But we also believe.

If you believe in God and the power of prayer, send some healing her way. Speak life over her lungs. Speak restoration over her liver. Speak strength into her bones and peace into her mind.

It’s time to get back in the ring.

And we’re believing this time, too, cancer is getting knocked out.~micaiah 

Heal What You Keep Hiding

Becoming is not loud.

It is slow.

It is sacred.

It is honest.

Many of us are navigating our way through becoming…

but we have not yet told ourselves the whole truth.

Becoming requires work.

The kind that asks you to sit with your thoughts.

To trace your patterns back to their origin.

To gently question what you were taught about love, worth, survival.

It asks you to uncover

the hidden agreements you made with pain.

The stories you swallowed.

The silence you mastered.

You cannot accept what you cannot change

until you lay it

on the table of your heart and mind

and call it by name.

Your future self

is waiting on your current self

to repair the cracks in the foundation.

Not to shame them.

Not to hide them.

But to mend them

so you can finally build

without fear of collapse.

What you seek from others:

patience, grace, reassurance, honesty,

require it of yourself first.

Becoming is not about perfection.

It is about truth.

And truth, beloved,

is where freedom begins.

~ The 3 AM Poet

A When Dreams Speak project

a division of MYD Dreams Collective

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