I could never love again, So much as I love you.Where you end, where I begin like a river going thru

This stage of the disease is hard, when the levels of connection feel the most subtle and primal, when no news is good news, when the biggest decisions are how quickly to turn her on her opposite side and how much morphine will get her comfortably through the day.

I hadn't been visiting much recently, slightly fearful of accidentally passing along some sickness, but mainly because feeling helpless by her side is a certain kind of exhausting that I just can't always take on. Especially these past few weeks, when winter has been its roughest and I'm struggling just to define what it means to be comfortable in my own skin.

I spoke to a medium the other day (the mystic Catholic in me can't help myself), and, as always, my mom was the first thing he brought up. (She is always the first thing any medium I've ever spoken to brings up.) He told me that our souls were tethered to the point that they were practically combined, that whatever it was she was dealing with, she was slowly preparing herself to move on (whether it be months or years he didn't know. No one ever seems to know), but it was me who was holding on too tightly, wishing her to stay.

That hasn't always been the case, but I knew it was true when he said it, as that selfish part of me continues to grow with every new happy milestone and hope for what the future may hold. For all the times I wished God would take her, stop her suffering, I now find myself wishing that he will let her linger on a little longer, allowing me to more time before I have to untangle from her life force, to find the strength to say goodbye.