We are all made of borrowed breath, kneaded with bone and flesh.
Fragile is the body, and the mind, more fragile still, though dressed in defiance. Memories are chosen or forgotten, rewritten to survive. As humans, we strive for survival and ignore the quiet needs of others. Kindness is not weakness. It is rebellion. It is choosing to be human in a world that too often forgets how.
We live in a world where survival often drowns out sensitivity. In the scramble to be seen, heard, or safe, we become armored, forgetting that every person we pass is carrying something breakable inside. Our minds are brilliant at protecting us, yet just as quick to erase what is inconvenient. We forget pain not our own, needs not our own, and stories not our own. But forgetting is not healing. And surviving is not the same as living.
From the hospital bed, I write this not only as a patient, but as a witness to something sacred. Sometimes, it is not the nurse, the tech, or the staff who rescues me, but something more profound. Sometimes, it is I who helps them. In the quiet moments, between IV beeps and check-ins, my presence, listening, and words bring them a kind of healing, too. That could be what it means to be truly human: to still serve, even when you are suffering. To still give, even when you are the one in pain. The world does not need more power. It requires more presence. More soul. More quiet rebels who remember we belong to each other.
Be one of them.
There is a need for more quiet rebels who remember we belong to each other.
Let your humanity be the healing even in suffering.
Dedicated to a new friend.