I was at work when I got the call.I sat at my desk, listening to Tamela Mann low in my headphones, staring out the window as the campus moved witho…
I was at work when I got the call.
I sat at my desk, listening to Tamela Mann low in my headphones, staring out the window as the campus moved without me. It was a bright, careless kind of day. The kind that assumes nothing is wrong.
My phone rang.
My brother.
“Hello.”
Silence.
Then a breath that broke in the middle.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
“They said she’s terminal,” he said. “Six months.”
Six months.
The words didn’t feel real enough to belong to me.
I stood, though I don’t remember deciding to, and closed my office door with more care than necessary—like I could soften what had just been said by how gently I moved.
We had only learned the cancer was back a week ago.
Now this.
I was over a thousand miles away from home, hearing that the woman who raised me—the one who made sure I became someone—was running out of time inside her own body.
It didn’t make sense. She had always felt… untouchable. Not in a loud way. In a knowing way. Like she moved through life already aware of things the rest of us were still trying to figure out.
“I’ll call you back,” I said, though my voice sounded far away, even to me. “I’m going to look at flights.”
I ended the call.
And then I broke.
Not quietly.
My body folded in on itself like it couldn’t hold the weight of what I’d just been given. My chest tightened. My throat closed. Tears came fast and hot, blurring everything until the room felt distant.
Six months.
Six.
Months.
The words echoed instead of landing, like they were looking for somewhere permanent to settle and couldn’t find it.
I pressed my back against the door.
It wasn’t enough.
I made it to my chair and dropped into it, the world continuing around me in ways that felt almost cruel. Emails waited. Notifications blinked. Outside, people laughed.
The sunlight felt offensive.
I stared down at my phone.
That’s when I saw it.
Something in my palm.
At first, I thought it was just my vision distorting through tears. But when I blinked, it remained—a small, glass-like drop resting against my skin.
Not water.
Heavier than that.
It caught the light in a way that felt… deliberate.
I tilted my hand. It moved slowly, like it understood gravity differently, leaving behind a faint trail of warmth.
Not heat.
Not cold.
Just presence.
Grief.
The word came to me whole.
Another drop formed—not from my eyes, but from somewhere deeper, somewhere beneath language—and settled beside the first.
Then another.
And another.
They didn’t evaporate.
They stayed.
Gathering.
Becoming.
My breath stuttered as they collected in my palm, pressing against my skin with quiet insistence. The weight increased—not unbearable, but undeniable.
“What is this…?” I whispered.
The mass pulsed.
Once.
Twice.
And suddenly—
I was eleven.
My aunt stood in the kitchen, one hand braced on her hip, the other stirring a pot like she was leading something larger than the room itself. Regina Belle played softly in the background, and she hummed along, missing notes but never missing the feeling.
“Come taste this,” she said.
I didn’t hesitate. I never did with her.
She cooled the spoon before handing it to me, watching my face like my opinion mattered more than anything else in the room.
“Well?”
“It’s good,” I said.
She gave me a look. “Good?”
I straightened. “It’s really good. You know you throw down.”
That did it.
Her laugh filled the space—full, rich, certain. The kind of laugh that made the world feel stable. Like nothing bad could reach me as long as it existed.
I gasped and returned to my office.
The grief had changed.
It was no longer a cluster of drops—it had formed into something solid, resting in my hands like a small stone. It shimmered faintly, colors shifting between gold and blue and something softer I couldn’t name but immediately recognized.
Home.
I closed my fingers around it.
It pressed back.
Not painfully—but with intention. Like it was asking to be acknowledged fully.
Another pulse.
Another memory.
Her hand wrapped around mine as we crossed the street.
Her voice calling my name from another room, stretched with familiarity.
Her fingers brushing my face in the morning.
“Today’s going to be great because you are.”
My throat tightened again, but differently this time.
Deeper.
I tried to steady myself, but the grief wouldn’t let me separate from it.
Because it wasn’t just grief.
It was love with nowhere to go.
It was every version of me she had held together.
It was the past refusing to stay in the past.
And the future arriving too soon.
I looked down at the weight in my hands and understood—
This wasn’t something happening to me.
It was something that had been building all along.
Every moment.
Every memory.
Every piece of her that lived in me.
The grief shifted, warming, settling more fully into my palms as if it had found where it belonged.
So I stopped resisting.
I held it properly.
Both hands.
Carefully.
The way you hold something that matters.
And something inside me—just slightly—aligned.
Not healed.
Not okay.
But steadier.
As if giving the grief shape made it possible to survive it.
My breathing slowed.
The tears didn’t stop, but they changed—less frantic, more honest.
I studied the stone.
This impossible, undeniable thing.
And a thought came, clear and unwavering:
If this is what losing her feels like…
then loving her must have been just as real.
Just as lasting.
The stone pulsed again—softer now.
Almost… reassuring.
I wiped my face and glanced back at my computer.
Flights.
I needed to go home.
But before I moved, I paused.
“I’m coming home,” I said quietly.
This time, I knew who I was saying it to.
The warmth in my hands deepened—not stronger, just certain.
And in the middle of everything breaking,
I realized
I was still being held, too.