Nobody Was Checking on Me

I had a color-coded binder for his treatments. Blue for cardiology, green for neurology, yellow for speech therapy. I could recite his blood pressure spikes by heart.

Every friend who called asked with sincere compassion: ‘How is Robert doing today?’

I would launch into my practiced 90-second clinical summary. ‘BP was 134 over 82, he completed 15 minutes on the parallel bars, we are trying a thicker liquid diet.’

Nobody once stopped and said: ‘Kim, put Robert’s binder down for sixty seconds. How did you sleep last night?’

And the brutal truth is: I didn’t want them to. Because if anyone had touched the real Kim, the whole dam would have burst.

When you become the crisis manager for someone you love, your own heartbeat becomes secondary. You eat whatever is cold on the counter. You skip your mammogram. You stop answering your friends’ texts because you don’t have the energy to explain the inexplicable.

If you are the woman holding the color-coded binder right now: I see you. You don’t have to surrender the binder today. Just put a sticky note on the front with your own name.