I sat beside her bed and watched hopelessly as she labored to breathe one painful breath at a time. Her lungs gargled with wetness with each breath she attempted to draw. I watched as her ribs moved up and down painfully when she couldn't draw in enough air to pick her exhausted body up. The oxygen tubing lying beneath her nose pumped oxygen into her body in hopes of helping an already failing system. I reached out and lifted her hand into mine. The skin was so pale and translucent. It was cold to the touch and so very dry. I stroked the back of her hand and curled her fingers around mine, wanting to pass my heat to her cold body. Her systems were shutting down; it was a matter of time before I would have to say good-bye for the last time. The last time. A time when I would turn and walk out of her room never to return. A time when I would no longer be able to touch her with love and tenderness. A time when I could no longer look upon her face and recall the dreams and life that we had lived. She was my strength, my beacon, guiding me along a turbulent path to help me be a better person.

I recalled the many times that she was there whenever I got into trouble as a child. She was my shield when our parents turned in their drunken rages, hitting out at anything or anyone that moved. She would hold my bruised and battered body next to hers as we lay beneath our covers wishing the world would disappear and we would be left alone to live in peace. She dressed me; she fed me; she wiped the tears from my face when I hurt. She held my hand as I struggled to move from childhood into the teenage years. She was there when I reached my identity crisis and realized that I was gay. She stood strong beside me as my parents tossed me aside like a piece of garbage that meant nothing beneath their feet but dirt. She abandoned her plans for college to go to work in order to find us a place to live, to put food in our bellies and clothes on our back. I watched helplessly as she held down two jobs in order to have enough money to be sure that I got through college so that I could get a job that would give us the life we only dreamed one day we may have. She rode my ass hard when I wanted to play instead of buckling down to learn all that I could. Nevertheless, she stood proud in the crowd when I crossed that stage bringing home the only college degree that our family had ever known.

She watched me struggle as I fell in love wondering if I could live my life with another woman always at my side. She held me in her arms minutes before I said my vows with my life mate, telling me that the love I had to share could not be held captive inside of me any longer and to reach out and take what I needed and to remember to give back in order to keep that love alive. She is the reason I am who I am. She is my world.

And so, I sit here, tears rolling from my eyes as finally I wait for the breath that never comes. I feel her soul slipping from its tortured body where cancer has consumed her lungs. I lean forward to gently kiss her one final goodbye and whisper quietly; "rest well my love, my precious soul. God keep you in his hands with care and love. I will miss you forever, my sister. You have been the wind beneath my wings, it now your time to soar, my angel." I rose without looking back and walked out of that door, knowing a piece of me would always be missing. As I reached the hall, my mate walked up and wrapped me in her arms as I cried one last time for the sister I would never talk to again. Together, we walked down the hall and out of the hospital to begin our lives without the presence of my beacon. I will love her forever and miss her till the day I die.



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