Breathing for Someone you Love

Do you ever catch yourself in that perfect moment when you  are conscious of breathing? Making love, being held, sleeping on a hammock in the shade with your arms wrapped around your lover, walking in the silence of the forest with your dog.

Do you ever breathe through someone else? Their lips dancing across your body awakening every molecule of your being.

Have you ever breathed for a family member, a loved one as they sat bent and broken; their head to their knees looking down because they could not find their way up? 

Do you ever breathe through your art? Your creative spirit taking you to places you have never been while it whispers in your ear “This is where you paint, sculpt, draw - this is where you share your craft - your gift with others.” And your masterpiece, a wedge of your soul, whisks them away in it's beauty and they are reminded to stop and breathe.

Have you ever sat by the bed of an aging parent and breathed for them for all the times they breathed for you? 

The failures that they never saw as failures just the passages of life. The bad decisions that they told you weren’t so bad because they taught you how to make good ones. The times you were a scared little kid convinced that there was a ghost under your bed. Your mother stayed with you, held you and made sure you knew that you were safe and that if just for a second you could not breathe; she would breathe for you.

The breath you take for a loved one before the breath you take for yourself isn't a sacrifice; it's an offering and a display of the love you have for them.

We all take our first breath and we all take our last breath. It’s the ones we take in-between that make the difference.

For my brother Chuck who stood by me inhaling, exhaling - not leaving until I could breathe on my own.