What if, Maybe

There is one piece of baggage that weighs differently from all the rest.

The word maybe.

A tiny word with the weight of a boulder.

Maybe if I had pushed harder.

Maybe if I had done something different, she would not have been on that freeway intoxicated.

Maybe she would still be here.

Maybe.

That word has become one of the heaviest things I carry.

I am still carrying my grief.

I am still carrying the questions with the biggest one being: WHY MY SISTER?

Losing my sister ripped pieces of my I feel I can never repair and there’s a part of me that keeps going back to the moment before her death, searching for a door I could have opened.

A conversation I should have had with the warning I could have given.

Maybe I should have known.

Maybe I should have acted.

Maybe I could have saved her.

What if, maybe.

I know, logically, that I cannot rewrite what happened.

But grief don’t always speak logically.

Sometimes grief is a courtroom where you become the defendant with your thoughts and emotions becoming the judge, jury, and executioner.

I keep putting myself on trial.

I ask questions that have no answers.

I replay moments that cannot be changed.

I carry guilt that may not belong to me.

But I carry it anyway.

I tell everyone I'm okay.

I tell myself I can handle it.

I smile and often say: I’m Fine.

I show up, I serve in my ministries.

I sing with all of my heart.

Praying I don’t mess up because it doesn’t come naturally to me all the time. And I’m not even confident if I believe everything I’m singing about anyway.

I cook for my family while running my side baking business. Often sharing meals and sweets with friends and coworkers. Because it’s my love language and it’s what I do. 

I work, oh do I work! Grateful for my job, but it becomes exhausting. Often costing me time I should be spending on cultivating my gifts from God.

I mother; going above and beyond for my kids when I can.Doing my best to be a safe place to land for my children. Trying to create a softer life for them versus the busted concrete I had to dig for my future through.

I wife; being more than a partner, more than a lover. I transform to whatever he needs me to be at that time. Calling the doctor’s office for his appointments. Speaking to the leasing office because he doesn’t have the words. 

I pray; calling down heavenly fire. Pleading to God to come into my situation and take this pain away from me. Lord, please protect my family. Pease heal my mind. Step into my heart.

I pay; a little more than the others in my household. Because I’m the one with the degree and the bigger paycheck. So, naturally I’m looked at as the one who can handle the bulk of the expenses.

I solve; every single problem my family throws my way.Wishing they would try to do something on their own for once. Not just for the family I created but also for the one I came from. 

It’s tough when you come to the point of parenting your aging parents.

I stretch; until I can’t stretch any more. I feel worn out and torn down so often. Tired from the day, every single day. Never getting enough rest. Waking up exhausted

I carry everything.

Along the way I have collected so many things, and it’s become too heavy to handle.

Baggage doesn’t always ask whether it belongs to you, it just asks whether you are willing to keep carrying it.

And I was willing to for a very long time.

Maybe too willing.

And then, sometimes, I cry in the privacy of a room because I don't want anybody to know that the woman everyone depends on is desperate for somebody to say:

You don't have to do this alone.

I want a softer life. That sentence feels almost selfish when I say it.

A softer life.

Not an easier life.

Not a perfect life.

Just softer.

I want to stop feeling responsible for fixing every consequence of everybody else's decisions.

I want to grieve my sister without turning her death into a crime I committed.

I want to pray because I love God, not because I am terrified that if I stop praying, everything will fall apart.

I want to breathe.

I want to sit down.

I want to put the bags on the floor and see what happens if, just for a moment, I don't pick them back up.

Maybe the truth is that I have spent so much of my life proving that I can carry the weight that I forgot I was never supposed to carry it all.

Maybe being strong was never supposed to mean being burdened.

Maybe faith isn't carrying everyone to the finish line on my back.

Maybe faith is trusting that I can put some things down and God will still be God.

What if, maybe.

I don't know what will happen next, and that scares me.

But I know what will happen if I keep going exactly like this.

I disappear underneath everything I am carrying.

Although sometimes I wonder what it would be like if I just left.

How would everyone feel? Would they even miss me? 

Miss me like, can’t live without me. Or miss me like, dang, miss what I do for everyone.

I gave it a test run. I did disappear; just for a little bit.

I jumped in my car and turned off my location.

No one could reach me and my locator pinged in one location for thirty minutes.

After I had my moment, I headed home. On the way there, I saw my family searching for me.

Did they care or were they just concerned they’d have to handle life on their own?

Maybe they do care.

For a moment, my family felt the shock of not knowing where I was.

But the shock didn't last long.

Life resumed.

Bills still needed to be paid.

People still needed things.

The world kept turning.

And I came back.

Because that is what I do.

And the grief rang even louder; like church bells at 9 am on a Sunday morning.

Even after I cried in front of my husband so hard that I completely broke down.

Even after I admitted without saying the words that I couldn't keep doing this.

Even after the tears.

I got back up.

I didn’t want to scare them; I just needed a moment to myself without anyone needing me.

I want to love without rescuing.

I want to give without draining myself.

I want to help without becoming responsible for everyone's survival.

I want to wake up and feel like my life belongs to me too.

So maybe this is where I begin.

Not by throwing everything away.

Not by abandoning the people I love.

Not by pretending I don't have responsibilities.

Maybe I will begin by setting down one bag.

Then another.

Maybe I learn that asking someone else to carry their share isn't abandonment.

Maybe I learn that boundaries aren't cruelty.

Maybe I learn that grief can sit beside me without becoming the driver.

Maybe I learn that being a wife does not require me to become the breadwinner, the prayer warrior, the financial planner, the crisis manager, and the emotional shock absorber all at once.

What if, maybe.

Maybe I learn that I am allowed to want more.

More peace.

More stability.

More partnership.

More joy.

More life.

But I can’t shake the grief.

I fault myself for everything and I feel like I could have been proactive in this situation.

My parents were declining, and I knew it.

I saw things happening. They were becoming people I didn’t recognize; not the same people that raised me.

I was worried about them.

Maybe if I had said something.

Maybe if I had spoken up sooner, she’d still be here.

Maybe my family wouldn’t be tattered and scattered.

We are broken!

No more family Christmases, or Sunday dinners, impromptu movie nights.

It’s all gone.

Our family unit died with my sister.

It seems like the togetherness was buried with her and I miss it.

Maybe if this never happened, we would be together.

What if, maybe.

I constantly ask myself tis every single day.

Not a day goes by that I don’t cry from this grief, this hole in my soul.

I have become very good at carrying things nobody can see and somehow, I have convinced everyone, including myself, that I am strong enough to hold them all.

That’s the lie I continue to portray. 

Showing my strength when deep down I know the narrative is false.

Maybe one day I will get past this phase.

Maybe I’ll be able to breathe, to live again.

Maybe my family will find themselves back together one day; restored and better than before.

Maybe I will be able to think of my sister without the painstaking feeling of soul sucking grief.

Hopefully.

What if, maybe.