I Heart Emerson

A heart is a heart, is a child, is a baby, is a niece. Here I am. I sit in the night looking at my niece fast asleep in her car seat. When she fusses I alternate between putting the binky in her mouth and rocking her seat. Her mouth is open. She is in a pink onesie; it has little puppies all over it. They are named cozy dog. Her mother, my sister, is writing and tearing up at the same time. I leave her be. She needs this time to feel. I need this time with a baby Emerson; that is the greater truth.

I still disguise my need for others. My older sister has always been this beacon of strength for me. She constantly held this position in life that I daydreamed of. Things like that never waver. Both of her daughters are as close to my own babies that I can feel. Emerson with her heart, and me with my own, I can only pull slight parallels. I am familiar with her future tests, her need to be pulled out of school, her need for an early adulthood. I feel connected to her as I would any other being, but the fact that she is my sister's daughter makes that truth so undeniably true. Here I sit in a place that I am completely immobile. I can gather the mail, put the dishes away, feed the dogs. I cannot take away the uncertainity, I cannot take away the scar on Emerson's chest. I am unable, at the end of the day to take away the unseen scars that my sister and her husband bear. I am uncomfortably aware of my inability to do anything mildly remarkable at all right now.

Tonight it is about life and the ones you love. They may be far away, they may be holding your hand, but no matter they are there to guide you. Live RIGHT now as if there is no other moment. Live with no fear in regards to the one that you are with. This is life and this is all that we have... Goodnight.