It’s a funny thing, life.

How we spend years under the same roof, intimately familiar with each other’s morning hair and how we prefer our coffee, but we don’t talk.

About the important things. The things that reveal the state of our breath — whether our hearts are bleeding, still.

We dance around the inane and get distracted by that which tells nothing.

And this goes on for years. A revolving door of pleasantries; tip-toeing around the marrow of our hurts.

Until.

We’ve had a few of those, haven’t we?

Those moments where the earth stops spinning on its axis and the breath is sucked from our lungs with a fierce ferocity.

And instead of drawing closer, we draw apart.

To heal, we say, but, what we really mean is to hide.

And here we are, with years on our faces and life has caused a geographical divide to bloom between us. But, our hearts — connected by unseen strands of the familiar, still recognise each other.

Each still knows the other’s laughter.

And I now, recognise the pain that you carry within your bones.

It is mine, too.

An unwanted gift with nowhere to call home, except the inside of our DNA.

This is the thing that connects us — this knowledge of things experienced that were never meant to be.

But they were.

And with it, our hearts were eviscerated.

We know this now.

At last.

It is still raw. This pain. Although, now, mercifully wrapped in the tissue that our bodies produce when the thing that will not leave us, is too great to constantly be paraded in our memories.

And now, even though our branches have grown apart, our roots remain entwined.

Love has held us.

Yes.

It has.

And I am watching you tentatively take the first steps on the same journey that I once had to take.

Negotiating the fear; facing the unknown with only the certainty of today, cupped within your desperate hands.

My heart holds you up.

I see you.

Together we are standing before the One who showed me grace when I least deserved it. Favour; for reasons still unknown to me.

And you are not alone.

I am here. Oceans apart but holding your hand.

Trusting the great unknown to the only Known that has never let me down.

It is all that I have, and it is everything that I possess.

And it will be enough.

This Love will cover you, and it will keep you.

And until we get to stand within each other’s embrace once again.

Just hold on.

It will be ok.

— Conversations with my brother (Love has you).

©Liezel Graham. 2018.