“Better days are coming you just gotta keep your chin up until they get here.”-
I repeated your words over and over at 3AM on the drive to the emergency vet,
Eyes blurry and white knuckling the steering wheel.
I’ve been here before.
With a German Shepard who had too many seizures to count-
Screaming at people to get out of my way,
The drive home without her was way less hysterical.
A blur.
Lightning struck across the sky as big and bold as the universe is being with these nonstop emergencies in my life;
I cling to your words like a lifeline.
Like they could change the outcome.
Like they’ll somehow glue the parts of my heart that are terrified to shatter
to the pavement.
And you’d said you were sorry you couldn’t be of more help.
But you were in the passenger seat of my car without actually being there-
Keeping my hands at ten and two, my foot steady on the gas.
Keeping me from unraveling completely on a highway in a storm.
Your words found me somewhere between home and another fluorescent waiting room.
And you cant change the outcome or soften whatever waits for me on the other side of those double doors but;
Your voice gave my fear somewhere to go at three in the morning when I needed to borrow someone else’s steadiness.
I wasn’t brave.
I cried on the floor of the vets office while comforting my hurting dog,
Waiting on test results I was certain would doom us,
But didn’t.
“Better days are coming you just gotta keep your chin up until they get here.”-
Your words repeated in my head,
Giving me someone else’s hope to borrow until I had the strength for my own.
