Carrying What Can’t Be Fixed

There are moments, quiet ones, when I walk into a nursing home or hospital room and feel her presence before I even see the patient. It happens in the soft rustle of a blanket, the faint scent of rose lotion, or the gentle way an older woman looks up and smiles, the way my mother once did.

I sit beside these motherly souls, their hands frail yet warm, and my heart always trembles a little. There’s something sacred in those moments, as if time folds back and my mother is sitting there with me again, her voice a whisper in my memory saying, “Be gentle. Just be here.”

Sometimes the room is filled with sunlight that spills across the bed, turning silver hair into halos. Other times the air is dim and heavy, carrying the quiet rhythm of a monitor or the slow sigh of someone drifting between worlds. I often bring comfort through presence, through touch, through silence that feels like prayer. And though Quinn lies nearby, his head resting softly on their lap, I know we’re both there for something larger than comfort. We’re there to remember love itself.

Grief never really leaves. It softens, perhaps, but it lingers like a familiar song that finds you in unexpected places. Every visit brings her back in some small way. The way a woman hums an old hymn while stroking Quinn’s fur. The way another closes her eyes and whispers about her children, her voice filled with both joy and sorrow. In those moments I see my mother’s reflection in every kind face.

Carrying what can’t be fixed isn’t a burden. It’s a blessing. It’s love that never found an ending. It’s the reason I can sit quietly beside a stranger and feel something holy passing between us.

At times, I leave the room and step into the hallway, the scent of antiseptic fading behind me, replaced by the sweetness of memory. I can almost hear my mother’s laugh, light and warm, floating somewhere beyond sight. And I realize that grief, when carried with love, becomes something sacred.

It becomes the bridge between this world and the next. It becomes the reason I keep showing up.

Visit the Facebook site: Stories, Past, Present, and Future
To read this story, and explore more heartfelt stories along the way: 👉 https://storiespastpresentandfuture.blog