grief

My toes hurt every morning. They don’t hurt a little bit, they hurt like spikes have been driven into them.

They’re just toes, one might say.

Every morning when I lay in bed and open my eyes I feel fine. I swing sideways on the bed and stand up. Still fine. I take one step forward and now my toes are involved, it’s like childbirth. There’s a pain that starts in the joints and radiates up my spine ending in that horrible place between your shoulder blades. This is coupled with the sour taste of fear and pain that inevitably floods my mouth.

It’s been happening for a few weeks now and it’s sort of one of those aches that are both insult and injury. If I get some shoes on quickly it hurts a lot less, and I’m very happy that most of my morning stiffness is gone, but the searing pain in the toes piss me off every morning.

This morning was colder than most and as I hobbled to the bathroom trying to keep my toes up I thought of Lisa and her foot. That fucking foot with the cancer that killed her. So now I’m in my closet crying before the kids wake up, because I had waited to cry and today seems to be the day. Today is also the day I need to film two videos so it only makes sense that I should start with red and puffy eyes.

That foot, that foot that took Lisa and prevented her from saving more babies and changing our world. That foot that made her hurt for years.

My toes can go fuck themselves, because they made me miss Lisa and her one good foot.