Leaving again

Leaving Again Leaving my mom to come back to the U.S. was the hardest thing I have done in a long time. The pain was immediate and familiar. It was the same pain I felt every time I left Sana in the hospital and came home—my body recognized it before my mind could catch up. That kind of leaving stays in you. Sana experienced ICU delirium so intensely that it shattered everything I thought I understood. She did things, said things, became someone I could never have imagined. We made her a photo collage and tested her memory every day—asking if she knew who was in the pictures, if she could recognize the faces that loved her. It was terrifying and heartbreaking to watch. And now, I have lived it again. My mom faced the same delirium. The same confusion. The same fear in her eyes. And without planning to, we found ourselves doing the same thing—showing her photos, grounding her, checking what she remembered, trying to anchor her to reality. The repetition has broken something in me. Seeing my mother relive what Sana went through has shattered me in ways I didn’t know were still possible. My faith feels shaken. I cannot understand why God would ask us to walk through this again. Once felt unbearable. Twice feels cruel. I keep asking myself what purpose there could possibly be in watching the same suffering replay through the people I love most. I don’t have answers. What I do have is numbness. I feel myself slipping back into that familiar, robotic state—the one that knows how to function, how to board planes, how to show up and keep going when feeling becomes too dangerous. It’s not strength. It’s survival. Grief does not move in a straight line. Trauma does not stay contained to the past. It returns when it recognizes a familiar shape. And this time, it has come back wearing my mother’s face. I am leaving again, carrying memories I did not choose to reopen, trying to hold myself together as I cross oceans. I know this state well. It is what happens when the heart has been asked to bear more than it should. For now, all I can do is breathe, move forward, and trust that one day this numbness will soften. That feeling will return. That meaning, if it exists, will reveal itself later. Today, survival is enough.