28/01/2026
Lately, grief has been arriving quietly.
Not all at once—just… constantly.
Death is not new to me.
I’ve worked in hospice. I’ve worked in dementia wards. I’ve walked with people and families who knew someone was dying. There was language for it. Ritual. A shared understanding that the work was to hold space.
This is different.
In the last two years, I’ve lost nearly 40 people who were my people on the streets. People I loved. People I checked on weekly. People whose bodies were worn down by systems that were never designed to keep them alive.
My work used to be about tending transition.
Now it feels like constant triage—trying to keep people alive in spite of everything stacked against them.
We don’t say this enough: our medical system is killing unhoused ʻohana, especially those in Black and brown bodies.
People are discharged sick with nowhere to rest.
Prescribed care that requires safety, privacy, refrigeration, consistency—things the street cannot offer.
Psychiatric “support” reduced to short holds and paperwork, then release.
This isn’t care. It’s abandonment dressed up as protocol.
There’s a man I’ve supported for four years—cycling in and out of psych wards with suicidal thoughts. On paper, he has a team. In reality, he needs community. He needs humans. He needs to be around people—not another Zoom call.
And if I’m honest, I’m scared he might be next.
I’m usually an optimistic, mystical person. I believe in cycles. I believe emotions move like weather systems.
And right now—this is too much.
Both my inner world and the outer world feel heavy. I’m tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix. This isn’t me giving up. It’s me telling the truth.
If you’re holding grief, rage, exhaustion—there’s nothing wrong with you. Sometimes the weight is real because the conditions are real.
I don’t have a clean ending.
Just breath.
Just honesty.
Just letting the feelings be here tonight.
