When I attempt these words for a second time, Alicia is tucked under a light blanket to my left, heating pad wrapped around the deep pain of her right side, tears sliding freely down her luminous cheeks.

This is my third try, now. 

I start with the first miniature paragraph from the second write because these days, I am preserving every memory we make: in between holding hands, catching tears, managing medication, loosening thought loops, negotiating frustration, tending her mama and sweeping pieces of her broken heart into small piles around this tiny apartment, I am trying to remember that it's okay that my heart is breaking, too. 

Two radiation treatments down, three to go.

Hours and days of rest and unrest. 

It is almost impossible to send a clear word from inside a storm: cancer is aggressively attempting to ravish the entirety of Alicia's light and every day, it's a practice to hold steady with any semblance of balance between the truth of what's happening in the eco-system of her being alongside grieving the effects of long term partner abandonment and sharing generative and really tough conversations on how to live fully while dying.

This world we find ourselves inside of is both intimate and ultimate. 

The terms stereotactic radiation, break-through, slow release and mets have woven themselves into our vocabulary—a new normal co-existing outside the border of everything else.

We notice how some health professionals we encounter remember Alicia is a unique human being and how others seem to forget she is a person.

We are overwhelmed in our fielding of requests for visits and kind offers from generous ones (you, maybe) to bring us anything we need because we do not have the mental, emotional or creative capacity to know what that is.

There is more, of course, but the hour is late and my mind, tired.

The relationship between living and dying is a tough one, isn't it?

To truly experience the fullness and beauty of both worlds, to embody the joy and grief of the long bridge we might call the middle, we need to acknowledge their existence: with our birth comes our certain death.

A small church called St Theresa's Parish, Shrine of the Little Flower lives a big life somewhere on the road my dog Winston and I take to walk alongside the water when we are city-bound. 

This name—a golden thread—has spent the past month or so weaving itself into my awareness as I continue to sit beside Alicia through her slow recovery, reworking how I understand the inside room of giving care and bearing witness to brutal suffering that often reaches for the ones we love the most.

What we've built—what we continue to build with the love and support we receive—is an intimate shrine. Wrapped in the arms of this small city apartment, each adornment mindfully chosen by Alicia. Delicate, tender and full of grace. Small, meaningful gestures. Dog snuggles, beauty, sunshine. Your kind messages stitched along the seams, added to her prayers and mine, layered into the architecture of this space which as it turns out is simply a holy vessel designed to hold it all. 

Although we seem to be jumping timelines quickly, there is no tidy way for me to wrap up this bright flare sent from the middle of our ocean, for this is all a process that will take the time it takes and we will send more words when we can. 

For those who aren't aware, Sabrina and I (with Fiona's support) set up a GoFundMe for Alicia with the hopes of reinforcing the financial backbone of her one wild and precious life.

My beloved friend is both the softest and most ruthless she's ever been.

Thank you for being here,
Bryonie