Painful Reminder

There’s this brief period each morning where for a few moments, things are okay. The pain is dull.. my eyes wake up looking for traces of what was.. my heart isn’t in my throat and I can blink without tears slipping out.
Never lasts long though. I stretch and roll over and as my eyes adjust.. my mind does too. My heart never forgot. It’s still broken.
This is my reality. My new normal. Day after day. I wake up wishing everything could be what it was.. that my life and my brother were still what I wanted it to be..
and I don’t have a choice in any of it.
So I stand up, I wash yesterday’s hurt away with my toothpaste down the sink and I make my coffee while I find the fight to continue through the pain I can’t see an end to.
And while I drink my coffee.. I remind myself of the little girl that looks up to me. And I find my strength for the day.