Dried tears that waited months to fall

I spent 12 hours at UCSF today waiting patiently in the waiting room on a vinyl chair that left marks on my cheek when I got some much needed slumber.

My brother had it worse. He spent six hours having the tumor that has been slowing encroaching into his brain removed. And then several in the recovery room, and when I left he was throwing up in the ICU.

My family was fighting and barely speaking when he had the first major seizure a few months ago, the one in which he collapsed in 1015 Evans into a mess and smashed his glasses, bloodied his shirt. I sped to Alta Bates, again, to visit him in the ER, again, and to sit in uncomfortable silence with the family I was loved and hurt by. It's weird, my brother always seems to go to hospital when we are all fragmented and hurting and separate, but that is another story to be told another time.

The surgery went well, apparently without a glitch, and the tumor appears to be beneign, though we won't know for certain until Thursday when the results return. And I am sitting at home needing to write a paper that seems so inconsequential now that I can cry the tears I have kept in for the fear of the reality that his diagnosis was really true. If it was all going to be okay, than I didn't worry.

I felt relieved and happy the fear and the hurt can be finally released.
I love my brother more than words can convey.