"Just like that, We were all waiting to be missed" by PQHAÜS

"Just like that, We were all waiting to be missed" by PQHAÜS

(Acrylic on canvas / 16x20 inches / 2025)

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I used to sit in that chair. 

The one with no arms. Just four legs, cold metal, and a seat that barely held me up on the worst days. It was uncomfortable as hell, but it was mine. It held what was left of me, my thinning body, my exhaustion, my attempts at being brave. Now it holds a candle. And everyone pretends not to look at it for too long.

They sit in a circle, like we always did. Some nod along to stories they have heard a hundred times, others just stare. Everyone is quieter now. Grief does that. Makes everything feel underwater. I used to think that is how we would die, freak flood, pipes bursting, water pouring in. Not the cancer. Never the cancer. But now, looking at them from wherever I am, I wonder if I was right in a way. Maybe the flood already happened. Maybe it is just made of tears. Because I swear, if every tear I cried in the last few months were still here, they would be up to the windows by now.

I remember when everything started to shift. It was not the pain. It was not even the scans. It was when the doctor came in and did not smile. His eyes said it before his mouth did. That quiet, heavy look, the one that lets you know they are about to say something that will break your life in two. After that, people stopped saying “next year.” Suddenly it was, Let’s hope you are here for spring. Let’s try to make it to your birthday. They start speaking in seasons instead of futures. Because they know. And you know. You just do not say it out loud.

There is something cruel about how life gets so vivid just as it starts to leave you. Food tastes sharper. Music hits deeper. The sun through the window feels like it is touching you for the last time. You stop caring about everything you once obsessed over. Your weight, your schedule, your inbox. All of it turns to dust. All you want is time, quiet, boring, ordinary time. You would give anything just to fold a load of laundry, drive yourself to the store, kiss someone without worrying it will be the last kiss.

But the worst part is not dying. 

It is getting ready to be missed.

You start grieving your own life before it is gone. You look at people and realize how much of you they will carry, and how much they will have to carry without you. You try to make it easier on them. You shrink a little. Talk a little less. Cry where they cannot see. You try to fade in a way that feels gentle. But there is nothing gentle about vanishing from the people you love.

I left behind what I could. My laugh in the corners of the room. A story told one too many times. Notes in books. A jacket I knew she would keep. But none of it feels like enough. You think you have forever to matter. Then you are left hoping someone remembers the sound of your voice.

Now I am here, whatever “here” is. And they are still down there, breathing through it. Sitting in that circle, all pretending not to stare at my chair, the armless one, the one with the candle burning too slowly, like it is afraid to admit I am gone.

I used to sit there. 

I used to be someone. 

I used to plan for next year.

And just like that, we were all getting ready to be missed.