The Slow Roll Downhill

Last year, my dad came to visit.
He couldn’t stay outside more than five minutes.
Couldn’t walk without pain.
Couldn't stand long enough to see the sky.

My friend — smart, brilliant, full of words —
she can’t read anymore.
Not really.
She tries, but the lines slip through her like wind through a torn screen door.

My dog’s face is white now.
Whiter every day.
The light behind his eyes is softer, like he’s already started leaving in slow motion.

And every friend I love —
every single one —
is suffering in ways I can barely comprehend.
Some of them quietly.
Some of them screaming into the void.
All of them broken in ways the world doesn’t bother to notice.

I feel helpless.
Every day.
All the time.

And there’s no lesson in that.
No redemption arc.
No tidy little paragraph that makes the ache worth it.

Just the truth:
I am watching everyone I love slide slowly toward the inevitable,
and I can’t stop it.

Not with prayer.
Not with money.
Not with kale smoothies or gratitude journals or well-timed check-ins.

This is what it means to be human, I guess.
To know that you are built to love
and utterly powerless to keep anything you love from vanishing.

So I sit in it.
I don’t run from it.
I don’t dress it up.

There’s no punchline here.
No twist.
No comfort.

Just the quiet weight
of staying awake
while the people you love
drift further into the dark.