Dispossessed

This last week prior to
My sister's relocation Upstate,
We are living like refugees
In the master bedroom.
Hiding out. Planning escape.
Eating on the run.
Sleeping at odd hours and intervals.
Packing furiously when inspired to.
Recovering from a cold that has left us
Sounding like walking contagion.
We are drained,
Physically, mentally, emotionally.
There's a reason why moving
Is one of the top five stressful situations.
We're living through all those reasons
And then some
Right now.

This is how a heart breaks, I muse,
Hearing Rob Thomas singing in my head.

Yesterday,
I spent many hours in the second bedroom,
Repositioning or repacking the boxes that stored
So much of my sister's life
That she hadn't unpacked three years ago.
Oh, what I found. And touched.
And remembered.
My sister has held on to
The relics of our former lives
As children of our parents.
She's kept holiday decorations,
And accent pieces like the
Wrought iron candelabras,
A remnant from our old life pre-fire.
"Happiness is being married
To your best friend,"
A wall plaque read that I repacked.
Our parents were, at heart,
True romantics.

This, too, is how a heart breaks.
Mommie only lasted six years
After Daddy passed away.
There have been moments I thought,
"What, Ma, we weren't enough to keep you here?
You had to leave us to go see him?"

I stood in the fire of my sister's breakup,
And the shadow of my parents' love,
And thought,
"There is no way I want this for my life."
The ones I love will eventually leave me,
Willingly or not.
What is the point of all this?

And yet,
To be fully human,
We must love others.
And let them love us.

Father,
Hasten the day
When it won't be like this.
I long for restoration, and wholeness,
The undoing of losses,
The unraveling of fears.
Give me courage to love freely,
Without the undercurrent fear of loss...