• Walking down a long never ending hall.
    deep within feeling that defenseless call.
    Pick him up, cradle him to you.
    Whisper a lullaby or two.
    Maybe he'll fall asleep or give a sweet coo.
    Watching with obsidian eyes, every move you do.
    His cries subsiding.
    My movements slow, gliding.
    Moving him gently from side to side,
    Helping my mother out so she can relax and let her worries vanish like the tide.

    Couple years later.

    His giggles ring high,
    I run behind him, tickling him; making him laugh.
    Telling him he could always reach the sky,
    Being a good older sister...
    Helping him to get his spirit to fly.
    To go past the stars, to go past the sky.

    A few years more.

    Now he's getting ready for prom.
    Fixing his tie and presenting his date to mom.
    Myself sitting at the side, teasing him about his tux and how "he's such a tom"
    How I wish I could.

    Instead I wake up, tears in my own eyes.
    Back in the waiting room
    Trying my hardest to stifle my own cries.
    Looking around me, there's my mom.
    sickly, sullen, tired, worried.
    Guiding me through the whitewashed hall.
    Wiping my eyes, it's all I can do to remain calm.
    stopping me before a small incubator,
    letting me sit down, mom whispering how she'll see him later.
    Leaving me be,
    tears gently trickle down my cheeks...


    Makani Kai...
    A name like music on the winds over the sea.
    Maybe one day you truly will fly.
    And maybe one day you may run, laugh,smile, be scared,get angry, or cry.
    But for now rest, get well, and let me be by your side.
    Let me try to be the big sister that I want to be.
    Even though my own fears, thoughts, and sadness haunts me.
    Whispering the sweetest lullaby I know,
    trying to give you a brief show.
    A show, a taste of what you may get later if you stay with us.
    Hang in there,
    Stay with us,
    be strong,
    Don't go.
    Get stronger, overcome, be the fighter I want to know.

    You're little wings not yet formed, unable to be used.
    My own drenched and soaked,
    Unable to fly.
    Soaked by everyone's tears, comforting my family as they cry.
    Cry for you my brother..
    My sister, my aunt, my grandmother, my mother.
    I can't run and hide, I can't duck for cover.
    I can only stand alone, standing by your incubator and out mother.
    Keeping the prayers of survival and hope alive.
    even though the pain and grief smothers.

    "How is it the hardest things happen to people who don't deserve it?"
    the thought keeps ringing in my mind,
    How hard can we get bit?
    Karma's traumatizing, fierce, unforgivable, devastating hit...
    Most just want to give up.
    I want to too.
    That fading daydream of helping him reach past the stars and sky.
    But when I see an older sister with her brother, I just try so hard to hang in there too.
    For my Kai...My brother.
    My sky..