Sometimes writing is survival. These next few pieces are exactly that.

The next 3 poems to be posted this week, “The Last Thing I Carried”, “After the Storm, the Silence”, and “The Halfway Place” are heavy in a way that I need to give context to.

They came out raw, in the aftermath of my mother’s death and later when my father relocated. They weren’t written to be pretty, or to carry neat conclusions. They were written because my body was collapsing under grief and duty, and I needed somewhere to put the weight.

While I will get into what happened in a different Real Talk, what you need to know is this…my mother, at 73, died unnecessarily because she failed to head medical advice. She then hid a situation from me and threatened my (89) father so he did not tell me or call for medical aid. I did not live close but I called them every week and nothing was ever said.
I didn’t know anything was wrong until there was no hope of recovery. Suddenly, I had to handle everything relating to her hospital, find long term hospice care, handle the cremation and burial.

You’ll hear guilt. You’ll hear exhaustion turned into a kind of religion. You’ll hear how it felt to walk away from caregiving of my father and wonder if that meant I had failed as a daughter a second time.

I haven’t edited these poems into something “easier.” I left the jagged edges, because that’s what those days felt like.

If you’ve ever carried too much, or had to put one foot in front of the other while your heart was breaking, you’ll recognize the tone. And if you haven’t—I hope these words help you see the invisible work that grief and caretaking demand.

⚠️ Content note: These pieces deal with death, grief, and the complicated ache of being both caregiver and survivor to an individual who was narcissistic, neglectful, and abusive.

You don’t need to brace yourself for them—but if your heart is tender, please read gently and also know that with the titles provided above you can skip these if needed.