You didn’t send a lightning bolt.
You sent a hospital hallway.
A nurse with tired eyes
and someone I loved barely awake,
murmuring something about leaving through “the other door.”

It wasn’t metaphor.
It wasn’t mystery.
It was certainty
like he knew
the universe had already scheduled the time.

I wanted to bargain.
To scream.
To rip the IVs out of the wall
And say, “Not today. Not yet.”

But then came the message:
not in a dream,
not in a burning bush,
but in his calm face.
A peace I hadn’t seen
since before the surgeries,
before the confusion,
before the quiet fading.

He said, “I’m not afraid.”
And for the first time in months I believed it.

You didn’t rescue me
you redirected me.

When I thought I was losing everything,
you handed me myself.
Told me,
“This is the story you’re going to finish.
This is the pain that will become power.
This is why you’ve carried so much.”

And I knew.
I knew it wasn’t punishment.
It was placement.

So now, when I think of messages from you,
I look up at the stars
And
I remember the hospital bed.
The other door.
And his face already looking somewhere I wasn’t meant to see — not yet.

With love,
Jenny