When The Love Falls
She laid on that hospital bed, just starring at the ceiling, her eyes are sluggish and dull. I felt a tear rise as I stroked her hair. Her hair is messed up. She is nothing like how I remembered her. Nothing like the beautiful vibrant girl I’d spent my whole life loving.
It’s cruel when you think about the fragility of life. How things can change in such an instance. You go through the world alone, depending on no one but yourself. Then in one instance or over a very long time, there is a whole other person to whom you belong to. Sure, you have your problems, you fight and cry and scream. You feel irritated and sometimes don’t appreciate them as much as you should have. But they are yours and you are theirs. You’re not married but you simply exist as one, knowing that no matter what happens in your lives, you can make it through to the other side. Then after all that. After that happiness of knowing you’ll never be alone, it’s taken from you.
You don’t know when it’ll happen. You don’t know why. You don’t even get to know how sometimes. They’re just gone, starring at the ceiling, quite as a ghost. The machines beeping the only thing telling you there’s some life in the husk before you. The poor representation of the life you once had.
The cruelest part is the hope that one day they’ll get better, that one day things will be as they were. The hope that when you’re laying in bed at night that they’ll crawl in there next to you and lay their head on your chest. The dream that you’ll be able to see her smile one last time before the end. Then there you are, dreaming, crying and hoping as the world passes you by. It’s nice, but it doesn’t replace that gaping hole in your life. That one person you thought you would always have. The one constant that you had come to depend on.
Things ended before he knew it. The words he would never get to say. The feelings that had remained strong inside his chest began to fade away and die.
He lay back on the chair, visualizing how broken his world will be without her. He is exhausted by the feeling of loss. The feelings that are suffocating him now but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of. The thoughts of that time when everything was so bright had bound his heart by a chain that had been inscribed with a simple promise that “he will never let her go.”
“I’ll save you…” Outside of his crumbling mind, he stood in reality, looking down at that fragile person before him. Tears dripped from his eyes onto her face. “I’m sorry that I can’t save you…”
“I’m sorry,” he once again grasped her hand, “I’m sorry that I can’t do anything to save you now!” Desperately declaring his apologies, he fell to the floor beside them. “I’m so sorry…”
“But.” He looked up, “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“I’ll live for you, now. Then you’ll go on and exist with me.”
He noticed the rush of footsteps walking toward her dead wife’s room.
they were parents of the admitted girl to the next room.
