The linoleum halls shine with despair and the dreary sunlight pouring through the veined windows project their anguish onto the floor. Meaningless paintings line the hallways, failing to provide comfort to the woman that’s stifling her tears. You can hear the beeps, warnings, and cries of a million different monitors, and the wheeze of breathing machines trying to dehumanize life. I float above it all. Unable to comfort the now sobbing woman, unable to resuscitate the man whose monitor is throwing a fit, unable put a blanket over you and calm your shivers. I can see everything, but I can do nothing.

  I see myself lying there: cold, eyes closed, cut off. My chest rises and falls with the monotonous mechanical rhythm of the ventilator. The eerie loneliness of the hospital halls would be suffocating if you weren’t here. I can feel you holding my hand, and I can feel your head resting on my stomach as the machine feathers it up and down with a steady mien. You’ve been here every day, and I wish I could thank you for that.     

I wish I could reach up and play with your hair as you sleep, or read a book, or just simply glance out into the cold January afternoon and watch the little people living their lives below my streaky window. But when you’re stuck all you can do is think.
I think about how much I miss you. I miss our laughter late at night in the creaky room with the pock marked hardwood floors. Our room. The room that was just small enough to feel cozy and just large enough so it wasn’t uncomfortable. I miss telling you about my school girl crushes through the flickering darkness and having you hold me when he broke my heart the next week. I miss fighting over shoes, and making sure our outfits didn’t clash in the morning. I miss seeing your face light up when your favorite song came on the radio driving to school.

I try to hold on to the shadow of a life I have left, because I miss these things. These things that from within the beautiful mess of it all seem perfectly ordinary, but when you’re lying in a hospital bed unable to rejoin the casualty of human existence these little moments and fleeting memories seem like a life’s worth of astonishing adventure.

I want to wake up. I want to open my eyes and smile up at you and make you feel like the hope you’ve been bottling up for these past six months was worth something. I want to wake up for you, but I’m already too far gone. I’ve already slipped too far away from the person I used to be. I’m already so far away from the shoes and the radio and the school girl crushes. I’m trapped in a limbo where I can appreciate the things that seemed so mundane and habitual, and pray that you know how much you meant to me.

I want to come back to you, and fill up the shell of a person I left behind, but I’ve already missed too much.

I love you more than words can say, and I’m sorry I never got the chance to tell you. When you let me go, please know that it’s just that. You’re letting me take the rest of the journey that I’ve nearly finished. Thank you for life I’ve lived. Thank you for being my best friend, my soulmate, my punching bag, my rock, my good man in a storm, but most importantly thank you for being my sister.