Sitting at my daughter’s bedside, I feel the weight of a parent’s unfulfilled dreams and societal pressures intertwining. In this living room-turned-bedroom, lavender from her favorite stuffed animals offers a small comfort amid change. I’ve covered the walls with pastel curtains and twinkle lights. Four organizers now contain her ample medical supplies. She remains our focus, and, like all parents, we strive to give her everything—even if it looks different for us.

My daughter has been placed on hospice. The word echoes through the hollow chambers of my mind, like a heavy stone dropped into a silent well. It reverberates with the finality I once associated with those whose time on earth had run its course. Usually, those who lived full lives. The word carries the weight of curtailed hopes, pressing upon my chest like an immovable object. Its designation marks the end of curative treatment, leaving no room for hope, which we are told is no longer a responsible posture.

Hospice describes an outcome—one defined by probability—and has rearranged our daily lives. Laughter drifts further and further away from our routines. Instead, we organize medications and keep the “Comfort Kit” nearby. Alongside it are two pages of funeral home listings, their presence a stark reminder and new fixture on our table. What we know must be done versus what we are able to do. The questions begin—questions I never imagined I would have to ask while preparing to bury my only child.

Will my daughter be welcomed there?

Did you support this administration?

How do I ask these questions in a way that ensures I am not funding institutions that will transact in my grief while denying my humanity in practice? What would you do if faced with such a dilemma? How do you weigh the cost of mourning against the principles you hold dear?

Will they bar me from visiting her? From honoring her?

Will my presence be deemed unwelcome because of who my people are, or what they believe about us?

Will her funeral become a potential ICE raid—despite our U.S. citizenship—because of the color of our skin, the sound of our names, the roll of our tongues?

Who is required to think through these contingencies on top of the already unthinkable task of burying their child? Who carries this additional burden when the natural order has already been violated—when she should have grown old and buried me?

Each morning, I gasp. Struggling to draw air into my lungs, this physical manifestation of stress is my body’s response to the relentless strain of living so close to anticipated loss. The sensation is suffocating. The weight of impending grief settles heavily upon my chest.

I remain with her every moment of the day. Sometimes she is so peaceful in her sleep that I rest my hand on her chest to confirm her heartbeat. Each time, I feel the faint thumps. My body, unburdened by euphemism, registers what the mind attempts to organize later. Panic is not a failure of discipline; it is an involuntary response to constraint. The bricks continue to stack on my lungs. I know they are there. Nothing persuades me otherwise. How else can I explain the moments when one is lifted, and I am allowed a breath? In unexpected flashes, moments whisk them away, like when she breaks into a toothy grin, her eyes sparkling with mischief. For that brief second, the heaviness dissipates, and air rushes in—a welcome guest.

As my daughter declines, the country deteriorates. This parallel compels me to consider not only my immediate personal loss but also the broader social realities that intrude upon and shape my experience. I struggle with the question of prioritization—what matters most right now, beyond her, if anything can be said to exist beyond her.

I am not a stranger to targeted violence. As a woman of color, as someone shaped by this history and lived experience, none of this is new. But familiarity does not render brutality more palatable. The simultaneity feels instructive rather than coincidental. Innocence erodes alongside inhumanity. Death circulates freely, while disregard remains institutionalized.

I have said this publicly, often with evidence, using my platforms to share the history. Still, there has been little serious engagement. Perhaps that is my failure. Perhaps I am not suited to short-form content—unable to be palatable or engaging enough to hold attention. Flagged videos, suppressed reach, and the hours spent recording and editing have not helped make complex realities easier to consume.

Eventually, it became clear. Time with my daughter—even if it is only holding her hand while she sleeps—matters more than reiterating information that others could read in a book or find with minimal effort. Her hand outweighs every obligation, a reminder that each moment is a precious gift we cannot replicate.

I have served as an educator, a protester, an advocate, a translator, a donor, and a safe space. In each role, I accepted risk without the illusion that this country’s hatred would ever regard someone like me as worthy of protection.

I sit beside my daughter as she drifts toward death, and my body understands captivity in a new register: a constricted airway and immobilization. The metaphors fail because they soften what is, at its core, a condition of enforced stillness.

I continue to act where action remains possible. I assemble kits. I disseminate information. I perform usefulness within severely narrowed limits. But ethical coherence fractures under divided obligation.

My daughter is dying. My people—innocent civilians, regardless of race—are dying. To state this is not to equate experiences, but to acknowledge a moral impasse.

Death begets death begets death—a pattern reinforced by policy, neglect, and historical continuity.

I feel myself coming apart under the strain of holding these truths simultaneously. This is what it means to live inside a torn self: to remain lucid without retreating into detachment, to witness without the insulation of distance, to persist in moral clarity when despair would offer relief. This is not resilience. It is endurance. And endurance, unlike hope, is not optional.

© 2026 Zoila Carrizales-Hazlip.

This essay may not be reproduced, excerpted, or redistributed without written permission.

Critical Writings

Endurance