FACING DEATH

 

A few days ago, I visited an ailing patient who had been sick for a long time. Her body was frail, but it was her face that stayed with me. When the doctor gently explained that her illness had progressed to stage five and that she would now be placed under palliative care, something shifted in her eyes. It was not fear alone. It was understanding. A quiet, devastating awareness.

How does someone feel when they are told they are going to die?

I could not stop thinking about that moment. About what goes through the mind when hope, as we know it, is officially withdrawn—not because there is no care left, but because care has changed its meaning. From cure to comfort. From fighting to preparing.

That moment reminded me of my uncle.

He had also been sick for a long time. On his deathbed, he was surrounded by family—his sisters, his brothers, people who loved him deeply. The room was full, yet death was closer than any of us. He knew it. And in one of his final moments, he said something that has never left me:

"Kumbe when you are dying, even if you are surrounded by a thousand people, they cannot help prevent death."

There was sadness in his eyes when he said it.

Not panic—sadness. A kind of lonely clarity. And we, the living, were shattered. A few minutes later, he breathed his last.

Death has a way of stripping life down to its most honest truth: that it is deeply personal. You can be loved loudly, surrounded completely, yet the final journey is one you take alone.

Sometimes I find myself asking difficult questions. Is it better to die suddenly, without knowing? Or is it better to suffer, to be aware that death is approaching, to have time to make peace with it? To say goodbye properly? To reflect? To accept?

I don’t know the answer. I’m not sure there is one.

What I do know is this: life is incredibly delicate. Fragile in ways we often ignore. We plan as though we are guaranteed tomorrow, yet tomorrow is not promised to anyone. Not to the careful. Not to the reckless. Not to the young. Not to the old.

That reality should not make us fearful—it should make us intentional.

Live as though this life matters, because it does. Take care of your body. Protect your health. Listen when your body whispers so it doesn’t have to scream. Save for the future, yes—but also live in the present. Laugh. Love. Travel. Rest. Create memories. Forgive quickly. Say the things that matter while you still can.

Balance responsibility with joy.

So that when death eventually comes—as it must to all of us—it will not find a life unlived. And when people speak of you, they won’t just say that you existed, but that you lived.

Fully. Meaningfully. Honestly.

IF ONLY

 “If only…”

 Those two words paired together create one of the If only...” Those two words paired together create one of the saddest phrases in the English language. 

They are simple, almost harmless in isolation, but together they carry the full weight of regret, longing, and missed chances.

“If only” lives in hindsight. It is the quiet ache of opportunities not taken, words not spoken, and courage not summoned when it mattered most. It arrives after time has passed—when outcomes are already sealed and possibilities have narrowed. Unlike failure, which teaches and refines us, “if only” offers no lesson. Only unanswered questions and imagined endings.

What makes “if only” especially tragic is that it is rarely born of inability. More often, it is born of fear—fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of judgment. Many dreams do not die because they were impossible; they die because they were postponed, doubted, or dismissed too early.

A life led by trying may collect a few scars, but a life led by “if only” collects regrets. And regret is heavier. It lingers longer. It reminds us that we never even gave ourselves a chance.

The antidote to “if only” is simple, though not easy: show up. Try. Take the step. Submit the application. Speak the truth. Walk through the door while it is still open. Even when things do not work out, you walk away with clarity instead of regret.

Because at the end of the day, it is far better to say, “At least I tried,” than to carry the quiet, lifelong sadness of “If only…”

DETOX

 He was my routine—

the way morning knew my name.

My dopamine drip,

measured in good-morning texts

and midnight breaths.

He was my safe place,

though the floor sometimes shifted.

My mirror—

I saw myself alive in his wanting,

brighter in his hands.

Now the silence feels like suffocation,

like lungs learning grief.

Oxytocin still lingers in the blood,

whispering return,

even when the mind knows better.

This is not love dying—

this is chemistry unlearning a home.

A body asking for a ghost

that once felt like oxygen.

I am detoxing from a powerful bond,

from touch remembered too well,

from pleasure that taught my nerves

to call him refuge.

Some days I breathe shallow.

Some mornings I ache without reason.

But breath is returning—

slow, unfamiliar, mine.

I am not broken.

I am withdrawing.

And withdrawal is proof

that something real once passed through me—

not that it must stay.

AFTER THE LEAVING

 There is a moment after love leaves

when the world does not collapse—

and that is the cruelest part.

The sun still rises.

People still laugh.

And you are left wondering

how something that broke you

didn’t break the day.

After a breakup,

the pain doesn’t shout at first.

It whispers.

It arrives in quiet hours,

in the pause between breaths,

in the reflex to reach for a phone

and remember there is no one

to reach.

You ask yourself the hardest questions:

Did I matter?

Was I easy to forget?

Why does my heart ache

while his seems untouched?

But grief is not proof of insignificance.

It is proof of depth.

Letting go is not a single decision.

It is waking up every day

and choosing not to reopen the wound

with memories that beg to be touched.

It is crying without an audience.

It is loving someone

even when loving them hurts you.

The pain teaches you something sacred:

that you can survive the absence

of someone who once felt essential.

That your heart can shatter

and still continue beating—

uneven, bruised, but alive.

One day, without ceremony,

you will realize you no longer check

for his name in your thoughts.

The silence will stop feeling personal.

The memories will lose their power

to undo you.

You will not forget him completely.

But you will forget the version of yourself

that believed love had to hurt

to be real.

And that is not loss.

That is release.

THE WORST KIND OF LOSS

He was the love of my life,

the quiet reason my heart remembered how to beat,

the name my soul answered to

before my mind ever caught up.

I loved him—not gently,

but with the kind of love that rearranges you,

that makes a home in your chest

and calls it purpose.

For months, my world narrowed into us—

late nights that blurred into dawn,

words whispered when the world was asleep,

stolen moments that felt like forever

compressed into hours.

I learned his presence like a language,

his touch like a promise,

his closeness like oxygen—

and I didn’t know I was breathing

until he was gone.

I miss the intimacy that lived between us,

the safety, the heat, the silence after laughter,

the way his arms made everything else disappear.

I miss being known.

Losing him didn’t just break my heart—

it emptied rooms inside me

I didn’t know I would have to live without.

And now I carry the ache of loving fully,

of giving everything,

of knowing that something so real

can still be taken away.

This is the worst kind of loss—

not because the love wasn’t enough,

but because it was.🤩

Morning without you

 Morning finds me before I am ready,

before my heart remembers how to beat alone.

I wake reaching for a voice

that no longer answers my name.

The bed is quiet.

Too quiet.

Silence presses where love once lived.

For months, loving you vasq was my language,

my routine, my breath between hours.

Now the day opens like a question

I don’t yet know how to answer.

I miss your face

the way desire felt certain,

the warmth that convinced my body

I was chosen.

Grief comes in ordinary moments—

light through the window,

the first thought of the day,

the habit of you.

I am not broken.

I am withdrawing from a life

I built around your presence.

So if I cry in the morning,

let it be known:

this is the sound of love learning

how to stand on its own.

And though today feels impossible,

I am still here.

Still breathing.

Still becoming someone

who survives the absence

and keeps going.

A HEART THAT LEARNED TO SURVIVE

 I stayed where love had teeth,

where my name was shouted,

where silence was safer than asking,

and leaving felt heavier than staying.

I left and returned,

again and again,

because hope is stubborn

when it grows in wounded places.

I lived with a man

who rationed kindness,

who counted my child’s hunger,

who made food feel like guilt

and love feel like debt.

My body learned fear before desire.

Touch arrived without tenderness.

Breath left before pleasure began.

Even my tears learned to be quiet.

I became someone else to survive—

angry, fragmented,

borrowing warmth from strangers

just to remember I was human.

Then I chose solitude.

I chose work.

I chose to build, to finish, to achieve.

I learned how to be a machine

because machines do not break.

And then I met you.

You were softness.

You were presence.

You were the first place

my heart rested without flinching.

I loved you deeply—

not loudly, not recklessly,

but with the kind of love

that finally believes it is safe.

Then your voice grew distant.

Your words thinned.

I began counting pauses,

reading silence like prophecy.

I blamed myself.

My past taught me to do that.

To believe love leaves

because I am too much,

too wounded, too afraid.

I don’t want many bodies.

I want one heart.

I only bloom in love.

Without it, I dry quietly,

and even pleasure forgets me.

So here I am—

loving hard,

hurting honestly,

terrified of losing what I finally found.

If I reach for you too often,

it is not control.

It is memory.

It is a woman who learned

that love can vanish without warning.

I am not broken—

I am surviving in a body

that remembers everything.

If I ask you to stay,

it is not weakness.

It is hope,

still brave enough

to try again Vasq.