Can you imagine?

Dear Body,
Can you imagine?
An emergency C-section at 27 weeks—your placenta ruptured, and suddenly everything changed.
Three long months of watching your tiny 2 lb 14 oz baby fight outside of you, not breathing, bruised, fragile, yet fierce.
Can you imagine the ache of helplessness, the sterile hum of NICU machines becoming your lullaby?
Can you imagine?
Watching her grow, fighting through illness after illness—each hospital stay pulling at your every nerve.
For two years, you lived on edge, breath held through every cough, every fever.
And then, slowly, you learned to breathe again—though each fall and winter still carried a quiet dread.
Can you imagine?
Carrying another child after that kind of fear—hope stitched together with anxiety.
Doctors watch closely, haunted by your history.
Your heart twists with every ultrasound, every question: Will it happen again?
Can you feel it?
That deep thud in your chest when you realize—this pregnancy is normal.
A different story.
A second C-section, yes—but at 37 weeks.
He cries. He breathes. He’s here. You finally get those first snuggles—until they pull him away.
Another NICU stay. Another collapsed lung. Another test of strength.
But then—finally—a family of four.
Can you imagine?
Finding a rhythm, the joy of ordinary days, only for it all to crash down again:
Breast cancer.
Can you feel it?
Your hands tremble as the word sinks in.
The poison meant to save you courses through veins that once carried life.
You wonder how to keep showing up—for them—for yourself.
Can you imagine?
Living in scans and lab results, new language, new fears.
That same fight-or-flight hum returns—the one you felt three years ago, the one that wakes you in the night when she coughs, when you press your ear to her back and listen.
Always listening. Always bracing.
Can you imagine?
That constant undercurrent of fear—
Except this time, it’s you.
Your body—the one you’ve lived in for 32 years.
The one that birthed, bled, broke, and healed.
Was it betrayal?
Or did you somehow know—
That this time, it was your turn to be cared for.
Your turn to be fragile.
Your turn to fight.
Dear body, I see you.
I am sorry for the anger, the exhaustion, the fear.
I am grateful for your resilience, your ability to hold on even when I doubted you.
You have endured so much.
You are still here.
We are still here.
With love and awe,
Me

*Photography by: @karacheekphotography