No recap.

No montage.

Just some weeks the body wrote for us.

Last week—
     they took pieces of me
     that didn’t belong there anymore.

Small removals,
  big reminders:

      you can’t outthink a scalpel,
      you can only show up and heal.

Tuesday—
        Ava’s knee,
        a clean,
        clinical reset
        that comes with crutches
        and that brave face she wears

        like she invented it.

So I became
   nurse-and-butler,
         ice runner,
         pill timer,
        lunch maker,
    hallway spotter,
   the guy who says
   “slow” and
   “you’ve got this”
   a hundred times a day

   and means it every time.

Yesterday—
          Mari’s mom under the same bright lights,
          Mari shifting into caretaker mode,
          that quiet competence

          that doesn’t ask permission.

So here we are:
   two houses,
   two recovery stations,
   two calendars rewritten in gauze and follow-ups,
   both of us learning again

   that love is often just presence in plain clothes.

No grand plans.

No late-night barstools.

No scoreboard.

Just the soft logistics of getting through:
     water,
           steps,
                 rides,
                       rest,
                            and check-ins
         that don’t demand any thing back.

If the world wonders why I’ve been quiet—
                             this is why.

I’m on Medical Leave
    from the versions of myself
            that had extra time.

But I’m still here.

Still holding the thread.

Still believing in the next chapter—
      when the bandages come off,
      when the swelling goes down,
      when our people are steady again,

      and the ordinary nights can find us.

For now:
        we heal,
        we help,

        we do the small things right.

That’s the whole job.