this time it will be different @empathtonowhere-blog - Tumblr Blog

Mommy,

I cannot, in any way, know what you’re going through.

The diagnosis; Cancer; Pancreatic.

The agony, suffering, disbelief, longing and loneliness you must feel all at once, all the time, are incomprehensible. This is me trying. Trying to feel it. Trying to breathe it; live it. So maybe, just maybe, for 1 out of the 86,400 seconds, you might not have to. I see you taking it step by step and I want so badly for your shoes to be placed on my feet, my own glass slipper.

I want to hoard up all your sadness, cradle it in my arms like a spoiled child with too many toys or Adele and all her Grammys. I’ll keep it all to myself and refuse to ever give it back to you.

Somehow I’m able to let myself feel everything you do. Your thoughts have become my own.

All the negativity I tell you over and over again to get rid of I consume. Your now cancer sick nations absorbed by my still unfinished empire

Maybe someday I’ll be able to take my own advice.

I’ve pegged you for dead before you even had a chance. I’m not sure what kind of son that makes me. It’s a piss poor coping strategy, I know, but it’s all I’ve got. The worst is yet to come and somehow, I already feel prepared.

Prepared to be there for you. I’ve shut myself down. I’ve told myself to “be strong” and commit to helping you find your hope. I’ve left mine somewhere in between Cedar Falls and Robins, Iowa. It’s baking in the hot July sun. Thrown out the window, discarded somewhere in the trenches that line highway 380. Maybe someone can find it before it withers away.