The Cost of What I Give

Compassion and Sacrifice: The Tenderness of Giving in Times of Vulnerability

Nothing I give is abstract.

It has weight.

It has consequence.

It has a cost that lives in my body.

This is what people miss when they treat generosity as limitless. They see what is offered and assume it comes from nowhere. They do not see what it takes, what it requires, or what it changes.

I know the cost of care because I have paid it.

What it cost to care for my mother

I took care of my mother while she had metastatic breast cancer.

I saw more than I ever needed to see.

I heard things no child should have to hear from a parent.

I lived inside anticipatory grief—knowing what was coming and being unable to stop it.

I learned the smell of cancer.

I learned what happens when a body is no longer private.

I learned how death announces itself slowly.

I listened to my mother tell me that I wished cancer on her.

I did not.

But trauma has its own language, and it does not always speak gently.

My cousin and I held her in bed when she went to dead weight. When her body could no longer carry itself. When gravity won.

I kissed her forehead when Ciji, told me to tell my mom that I would be okay without her.

I held my mother’s hand for two days before she died.

That is not a metaphor.

That is not poetic exaggeration.

That is physical, lived reality.

What care does when it is total

Care like that does not leave you unchanged.

I already had PTSD.

What happened while caring for my mother reshaped it.

It changed how my nervous system functions.

It changed how my body responds to stress.

It changed what I can tolerate, what I cannot, and how quickly my system moves into defense.

Covid was going on at this time.

Isolation. Restrictions. Fear. Medical trauma layered on top of grief.

My Complex PTSD worsened.

My body broke down.

I now live with an autoimmune disease.

I live with chronic pain.

This is what prolonged trauma does.

This is what multiple rapes, emotional abuse, victim blaming and shaming, and retaliation do to a person.

This is not weakness.

This is consequence.

Why I do not give casually anymore

People sometimes expect care without understanding its cost.

They want presence without responsibility.

Support without impact.

Generosity without consequence.

That is not how reality works.

Everything I give comes from a body that has already carried too much. From a nervous system that learned survival the hard way. From a life shaped by experiences that cannot be undone.

So when I choose to give now, it is deliberate.

It is measured.

It is protected.

The cost is why consent matters

When people take without asking, they are not just being rude. They are ignoring history. They are ignoring what it takes for someone like me to offer anything at all.

Consent matters because:

• I have already given more than my share

• My body cannot afford casual extraction

• My health depends on limits

  
  

Nothing I give is free because it cost me something to become who I am.

This is the truth

I am generous because I choose to be.

I am careful because I have to be.

The cost of what I give is written into my nervous system, my immune system, my bones, and my pain.

And that is why access is limited. That is why care is intentional. That is why nothing continues simply because it once did.

Nothing here is free just because it is generous.