A Sister's Heart

The hardest part is not knowing why.
During the small hours—those cold silent dark mornings—I think of him.
There’s no room for judgment. Not anymore.
Maybe he thought I couldn’t handle what he had to bear.
Perhaps I don’t possess the strength.
I wish he’d given me a chance.
I would have given him my shoulder—an unsteady one—but a shoulder . . . and a sister’s ear.
I should have listened.
I listen now.
The last time I met his stone was the day he was buried.
As I walk to his resting place, slumped shoulders droop under a long coat pelted by lumbering raindrops. A man stands with his back to me. He knows I am here, but the pain will not allow him to greet me. I wrap an arm around his back and rest my head upon his damp shoulder.
No words.
He is a hollowed man—a father to only me now.
A single flower held by limp fingers bends under the weight of the pouring rain. With an impotent flick of his wrist, the flower falls to the earth where my brother rests in eternity.
 
“Perhaps the tragedy of death is not ​that those we love have died, but that we go on to live.” VH
 
I’ll see you between the pages.

Best,
Van Heerling

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