Craniotomy // Letting Go

I feel so far removed.

Since coming back to the States from my time overseas, I've been someone I have never been before.

I'm turning into an introvert.

I can't seem to get back to where my heart is connected to that around me. I know why- it's still on the mountain where I left it, where I felt it rip apart from my soul and stay in the soil when I had to leave. I couldn't tell you exactly where- I couldn't see through cascading tears, wondering when I'll ever be HOME again.

Without my heart, I feel numb. 

So when my brother has craniotomy surgery today, I'm sitting here waiting for news, calmly drinking coffee and watching craniotomy surgery videos, and I know this should not be normal. Why aren't I so involved, so wrapped up in the emotion and the fear and God only knows what the outcome will be? We thought he'd never make it through last year's surgery, when the clamped his lung shut for good and sewed patches on his heart. I vividly remember the fear then. I can still feel the utter exhaustion, mentally and physically, and my hands still shake whenever I recall the utter helplessness of the unknown. Everything about that day was a last- last kiss, last "I love  you", last walk as a family. We prepared, we prepped, we knew the stakes. We were ready. 

Today, I don't feel it. I haven't prepped, haven't gone through the risks. This isn't just a lung here. It's the drilling of the skull, the opening of a brain that pulses and one wrong move changes everything forever. Somehow, I can't even think beyond this surgery to imagine the possible outcomes.

Somehow, I have closure. 

I've done all I can. I've reached out, I've prayed, I've cried. I've been there- always been there- for my brother. I can do no more. 

We send one last email to each other across the miles, both of us awake in the night because still, you can't sleep on a night like that. We say "I love you" one more time. I tell how much I respect him, look up to him. As always, I treasure his words as only a younger sister can. 

But there is peace. 

I don't know how this surgery will go. I wish I could be more in touch, feel it in the depths of my soul. 

Yet there's freedom in the letting go.