The Weight of a Hand I Can’t See

Some nights, someone is in my room with me.

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Not outside the window, not a shadow in the corner, but here, beside me.

I cannot see them.

I cannot hear them.

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And yet, I feel the smallest things: A hand brushing the side of my neck, a finger tracing the curve of my leg. Just enough to make me freeze, to make me wonder if I am imagining it, or if it is real.‎

I do not know if it is my daughter, my baby, or something else entirely. I want to believe it is love, a silent comfort. But there is fear too, a cold awareness I cannot name, cannot explain, cannot push away. Some nights I press my face into my pillow, telling myself it is loneliness, grief, memories twisting into shadows. But the hand is there. The presence is there. I cannot make it leave.

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I remember the first night it happened. I woke from a half-dream, thinking I heard a soft sigh, and when I opened my eyes, the room was empty. But I felt it... A small, warm weight on the side of my leg, and I knew even then that it would not disappear with the morning light.

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Sometimes I reach for it. Not to hold, not to grasp, just to feel something real in the emptiness. My fingers brush nothing, and yet I feel it, a weight against my chest, against my ribs, a pulse that is not mine. It lingers through the night, in the spaces between dreams and wakefulness, whispering that the past does not leave, even when I try.

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The quiet makes it worse. No sounds but my own breath, no movement but the shifting of the sheets, and yet I feel it sitting beside me, small hands, gentle yet insistent, brushing, pressing, reminding me that someone or something still remembers, still waits, still watches. Some nights I speak to it softly, telling it that I am trying, that I am still here, that I want to heal. I do not know if it hears me, or if it even cares.

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Some nights I cry silently, afraid to move, afraid to wake whatever is there. Some nights I tell myself I will sleep through it, that morning will bring light, reason, emptiness where weight now sits. But it does not. Some nights I lie awake and wonder if it will ever leave, if I will ever heal. Some nights I imagine it curling closer, pressing its face into my shoulder, and I want to reach back, to meet it halfway, but the air holds nothing.

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Maybe that is the truth I need to confess: I am not ready. Not yet. Not when the weight of a hand I cannot see reminds me every night that grief does not vanish, that memory, loss, and longing do not fade, that some parts of the past cling to you even when you try to let go.

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Even now, I feel it sitting with me, and I realize that healing is not a moment. It is a quiet struggle beside a hand I cannot hold. Some nights I swear it sighs, as if it has been waiting for me all along. Some nights I whisper my own memories aloud, stories I have buried, and the presence listens, still and patient, a witness I cannot name.

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Some nights I stay awake long after the moon has passed its highest point, listening to the silence, counting breaths, tracing shadows on the wall, and wondering if it is still there, if it always will be. And though I cannot see it, I feel it as surely as I feel the beating of my own heart.

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Some losses never leave us.

Some loves never let go.

And some hands, even invisible, never stop holding.