tonight
I couldn’t breathe at all when I found out. The air in my lungs felt like they were giving away, withering like flowers that could no longer blossom. There was like a fire burning throughout my body, as the hot tears fell like a sudden drift of rain. My legs were giving out, as though the ground had suddenly shaked into a storm of rumbling earthquakes. Falling onto the ground with a thump, the tears blinded me from the sight of the white lab coat and the sight of crisp clean hospital floors. It was the worst news of my life, it truly was.
I don’t remember standing up from my position. I don’t remember picking up myself piece by piece to remove the blinding tears from my face. I don’t recall wiping the hurtful scowl of my lips and turning it into the smile that she loved so much. The wobbly legs did not even feel straight or strong as they walked into those plain wooden frames. But I was there. I just stood there, to admire the love of my life. The beauty in her sitting position, a book resting against her lap. The pain was reminiscing, of all the happier days under that tree by the park where the two of us rested the mounds of our heads against the very barks where our name was etched together.
There was a threat of tears that were coming once again. I could not help it, I couldn’t bear it. It was too much. Those memories are just as they are — memories. Fading into time, into a small frame filled with the very dust that I had avoided. Fading into the word yesterday, the yesterday that I had so desperately tried to block away from my vocabulary. But it was unavoidable. Mortals have no choice with the measure of time, even if one could say it was made up.
Time will always be infinite and the flesh of human beings finite. Just as much as memories. I couldn’t feel my chest, there was no beating and there was no air. I was too broken. Too broken to know. To know that this moment to, and the next and the next after — would be memories. Memories that would be scars left behind for me to reminisce. Just as finite as this human being I had come to love. My lips trembled, wishing that I could speak. To say something that would drive away the darkness. But there was nothing. I felt empty. There were no words of comfort or condolence that could make this any better or any easier.
“You’re staring again.” Her words pulled me out of that prison. There was something so soft about her voice, almost so gentle as a featherbed. “I didn’t know you could be such a creeper.”
She put away the book, leaning towards the small lamp table with slight effort. That small effort alone, it hurt her. I could see it in her face. But the moment she resigned her hands on her lap, she allowed her lips to reach into a smile — one which allowed the beautiful craters of her cheeks to blossom like a flower in summertime.
She was still so beautiful, the wonder of the world that I worship. Moving towards her, I took the small stool and sat down softly. Taking one of their hands with great care, I looked at it. I had been mesmerized by the thought that they were the most gentle figures made by the heavens when we first met. Today, I still am. Though they were battered and hurt by the treatments that was done to keep her alive, they were still so gentle. So genuine. So alive. They were my person’s hands. The immeasurable wonder of life started from these hands. And I got to hold them. A silent thanks came out of me. I am thankful that I still had the chance to hold these hands. Even for a while. Even just once.
“I’m sorry.” Those were the first words that came out of my mouth. A pain in my heart swept over me when I realized. I was sorry. I was sorry that I stared. But I was also sorry, because I was breaking down when I should be strong for her. I was sorry that I couldn’t protect her just as I had promised to her at the altar. I was sorry because our time was too short. But most of all, I was too sorry, too regretful that I couldn’t do anything to protect her from this illness.
“Don’t.” She whispered to me, her lips were dry and cracking. She couldn’t even stomach water lately. Rubbing her thin thumb across my hand, she gazed at them for a moment. It made me look down too. The way our rings touched was mesmerizing, it was a wonder to behold. A wonder that there was enough love that blossomed such as a wondrous garden called devotion. A small smile appeared on her lips again. “I don’t want you to think about apologies.”
“Especially if I mean it?”
She nodded. There was now sadness in her eyes. “Especially if you mean it.”
When she said that, I was brought back to that moment. When we were told that she was sick, the illness advanced across her body like a parasitical plague sent by the heavens. Her face was resilient, eyes unfazed and her lips in a flat line. She kept nodding and talking with the doctors. It was a day I felt sorry for too — as I had broken down, sobbed and lowered my head. It was unfair to her, everytime I look back on it. She was the one who was sick. She was the one who got the news that she could lose her life. Yet she was the strong one, she was always the strong one. I let her down so many times. Especially now. Especially now when everything was falling apart. I bit my lip, feeling all the guilt of then and now wash over me like a waterfall endlessly rushing down onto the spring.
“You were told, huh?” I heard her ask me. I look away, not wanting to show her the sudden change in my face. She sighed. “I suppose, this is it.”
“I….” The words I wanted to say didn’t even make it out of my mouth. I didn’t know what to say. What is there to say in the face of the truth we do not have the heart to face?
“Let’s just enjoy this time.” She says to me, her tone laced with the sadness I cannot even bring myself to understand. It was breaking my heart into pieces, pieces that could never be whole again. Her hands trace mine again, as though writing the comforting unspoken. The comfort that I was longing for. The comfort she too was longing for. “What we have left.”
When I finally looked at her, that’s when my eyes sprang the pains that came like the hard pouring rain. Her smile never left her face as her own rain poured out of her, consoling me as my head fell onto her hand and staining her own body with the tears that poured out of love. Out of the love that I chose to bear even in its painful, mortal conclusion. No words were said, there was never any need to. No words had ever been needed to express our grief. The grief that comes with the parting that should come sooner than we had hoped and dreamed.
I fell asleep in her arms last night, tiring myself from the hurt that came rushing in waves that continually broke against the harsh wind. There was nothing I could feel, no heartbeat to feel the world light up to. There was no more breath that gave the reason for the wind to embrace the flower fields. There was no words that poured out either, nothing that could even form the words of love into the poems that would validate love’s realization in this world. I lost her. So suddenly, so quietly — pulling away in her sleep with the same smile that forced itself to console me in the happiest way even if her tears mourned what could have been.
In my dreams last night, I dreamed of our youth together. Of those days where we wandered the countryside in that old small cramped car. The radio was playing and she was singing along, so lively. The liveliest I had ever seen her, with her eyes mimicking the stars above themselves. The weather was warm, but the feeling of good cool breezing winds made us comfortable under the sun. As we played in the flower fields, laughing as we passed them by chasing each other in this flowery path, this maze. It made me happy. Because she lived as she had always had — happily without the fear that came with the moment that was in front of her. There was only the zest for adventure, which presented itself in the brightest sun and the place without road signs. Rather, there was just anywhere. Just the vast wilderness of the unknown. But that didn’t matter. We were happy and we were together. Then I lost her in that maze, there wasn’t a trace of her. Just as there had been once a moment where she looked back at me, our eyes meeting — there would be a moment where she was no longer there and left only with the parting.
I squeezed her lifeless hand, whispering under my breath a forgotten prayer and a word of thanks. A thank you for one more night. For tonight. She had been so strong and for granting me one more night, she had fought with everything — even her own body. I was grateful to have one more chance at love. I didn’t leave that position for a few more moments. I wanted to grieve this moment before the chaos of nurses and doctors came in. That tranquility where the birds sang for a moment, the sun hitting us with the warmth of a new dawn. It was peaceful. It was everything I knew she would have wanted at the end.
When the funeral came, none of her family came. Not even her mother who reluctantly accepted her relationship with me in the end. I did not feel bitter about it. I accept it as it is, because I know my wife did not deserve to suffer a stain in her good memory because of people who could not love her. My family and our good friends had been there mourning her. I was silent, just sitting there with a cigarette wondering what would now become of me. Grief was eating away at me, I was sure about this.
But I was even more certain that I needed to understand what living is going to be like moving forward. There was no life in me before her. Before I had met my wife, there was nothing else to feel the vibrant breath of spring days. The wonder of winter time’s cold joy under a huddled blanket together. The sunlight by the beach on warm summer days. Watching the leaves fall together by those wide windows. These were things we did together. Closing my eyes, I wondered if I could continue doing it again. I wondered if there would be a space in my life where the sun would touch the ground once again. The sun in my universe had died, had been taken away and disaster in the darkness was what remained to me.
A huff of that misty cold smoke, I let it engulf me like a protective shield. A barrier between those who wept on the funeral hall benches and those who would come to view her coffin. I didn’t want them to see me. I wanted them to mourn without having to come to me, having to tell me stories or condolences. I didn’t need those.
They needed to mourn in their own way. I had said what I needed to say to her. We had already bid goodbye in the night, spent all that we had to console the loss that was going to be — to let the other understand that the fear of the dark unknown was going to be alright. That was all I really needed. I know that was what she needed too, as she went. Our hands together. That was all the comfort that could have been.
Though we had said our goodbye, I closed my eyes briefly every night wishing and hoping that she would haunt me. Hoping that even if it was a nightmare, even a glimpse of her — I kept hoping in the same bed that we both had made love and gave love to each other’s arms. I kept hoping that she would come. In my heart, I knew that she was already at peace. But I was greedy, I like to think. I was greedy for more time. For more chances. To do it all over again, to love all over again. But it wasn’t meant to be long in this present. There can only be so much, be given enough and still think that it wasn’t enough in the end. Even when it was the happiest.
The lit cigarette was almost at the end of the bud, I sighed and rubbed it against the cigarette against the porcelain ashtray. I sighed tiredly and looked towards the coffin. I was pretty sure I would sob when we put her at full rest. I probably will never marry again or even have the courage to love as much as I did with her again. But in the end, love was a beautiful choice. A heartbreaking choice. A damned choice. I chose the moment to say hello to her at that art gallery and I chose to say goodbye to her in the night that only belonged to us. Full of fidelity, of endless devotion. I chose it. And I would do it again.
I couldn’t help but smile as I turned at her picture. I whispered.
“I love you.”
