The Proxy

I'm sitting in a hospital room again.

Not for me, but for someone I love.

Machines breathe where breath once came easily.

A life that once built, repaired, and provided

now depends on the care of others

mostly mine.

I know this role.

I've played it before.

I didn't want to then,

and I don't want to now.

But here I am, the proxy.

Not by choice,

but by proximity,

by blood,

by the quiet competence that makes others step back

and leave you holding the clipboard of decisions.

It's a strange kind of inheritance

to be trusted with the living and the leaving

of someone who never learned how to rest.

This position isn't like the ones you choose.

It's not earned, nor asked for.

It arrives quietly,

like the punch list you forgot to close out,

with items that only time can sign off.

And though I know what must be done,

I feel the familiar weight of doing it again

the steadying of my voice,

the ordering of the unknown,

the stillness that feels like duty but tastes like sorrow.

There's no wisdom here, only witnessing.

And yet, maybe that's its own kind of care

to hold what's breaking

without pretending it can be fixed.

Field Note:

Some roles choose us

because we're the only ones who won't look away.