Cath Lab Life

For years

I have wandered

adrift, waiting to find

a place where I fit in

a niche to call my own

and it landed among you;

you wonderful, negative, lovely, awful

myriad of people

whom I call family.

The only kind of close you can be

holding life and death between your hands

at 3 AM sleep eyed

staving off death’s encroachment

with grim humor, sharp minds, and quick hands;

the kind of close where you understand each other at times

without even uttering a word;

where all levels and types of emotion

burst out, running rampant and wild

and in the end, all is forgiven because we are all in this together.

We are family.

A dysfunctional, life-saving, terrifying, amazing family.