today is my last day with this gorgeous girl. this sister of mine. my heart is living in the soles of my feet and i might float away on this river of sadness, except that i owe it to maya to be the strong one for once. this time it has to be me making it right, because she would keep living in all of her pain and hurt until she disintegrated if it were up to her. if it meant staying with me. it might sound self-absorbed, but if you know maya you know of what i speak.
so we will walk our last walk and feast on salty meats and i will memorize her stink and the cold of her nose. the cloudy love-filled eyes. how her ear rolls between my thumb and finger and she smiles. i will be thankful for these last surprise months, and the adventures and love we crammed into the gift of those days. i will miss the sound of her labored breathing and her vigilance and her ability to absorb my fears and know my worries (perhaps by sitting at my feet all these years and somehow learning to leach it from where she lay?). always looking out for me. but there will be the shadows in her eyes, and the times she looks like she is scaring herself. the reasons i have. how her light has been steadily dimming. i will have to remember how she would lay shaking, where it hurt, but she would beg to walk to the dock. she would walk beside me till her legs were left behind. unswerving.
i think this is the only gift i can give her. all that is left; relief. surrounded by all of us. at home. we all owe her that. i just hope i'll remember these things when she isn't here to remind me.