I got to the airport early even though I knew the flight was delayed.
I had been tracking it since he left Arizona. Texts from him at the gate. Updates from his mom. A text when he boarded that landed differently than the others. He was on the plane, he was coming home. I had my gate pass in hand before I left the house.
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The neurology appointment is coming up, so I went back through the footage.
This is part of the routine. We have a camera in his room as part of how we monitor his seizures at night and into the morning. I check it most days, usually just the early hours, scanning for the telltale movement and sound that tells me what kind of morning we’re starting. I know what I’m looking for. After twelve years I can spot it quickly.
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He comes home on Sunday.
I’ve been counting down in a way I didn’t expect to. Not dramatically, just the quiet awareness of the days getting smaller. Six weeks is a long time. Longer than I thought it would feel.
I know why he went. He needed time with his mom, and I wanted him to have it. I gave him that space without reservation. We talked every day. I want him to have a good relationship with her. That matters.
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I’ve been listening to a book called Mattering. One of the early chapters is about the weight that comes from someone depending on you, and what happens when that weight disappears. The author tells the story of a woman who cared for her elderly mother for years. When her mother passed, she didn’t just grieve the loss. She grieved something more specific. The absence of being needed in that particular way, every day, by someone who depended on her for it.
I recognized something in that. Not the same loss, but the same shape.
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I typed the last word sometime in the spring. I closed the laptop and sat there for a minute.
That was it. Twelve years. Fifty-nine chapters. Done.
I didn’t know what to do next.
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