It was August the 12th, when the phone call came.
Of course, I’d been expecting it. But none the less, it all seems a bit surreal when things actually happen. When your dreams, of sorts, become true.
I’d expected the reaction to be a complete breakdown. I’d expected her to break into tears and come to me to hold her. But, that wasn’t what happened at all. She was just speechless. It took me a few times of asking her what it was before she showed any sign of cognition.
I remember her voice exactly, or lack of a voice to be more precise. A deafened whisper.
‘I’m dying.’
And I’d been preparing myself the past few days for this moment. What to say and how to act natural, but when it happened, I realized I didn’t need it. Because when you reach a moment that profound, it’s impossible not to act natural. And when it happened, I didn’t need to put my practice to the test and try to force a tear down my cheek. They just came. I couldn’t stop it. We just hugged and cried. And I didn’t ask questions and no, not because I already knew the answers, but because I couldn’t speak either.
It was good for me, I think. The crying. It made me feel more compassionate. I didn’t need to fake anything after all, I actually was a fully emotional human being.
It was August the 14th, when she was put on life-support.
I sat at home the entire day. Practicing.
And of course, you’re wanting to know why I did it.
Why I, to put it most unfairly blunt, killed my wife.
It’s a feeling I’ve had, as I am sure you and everyone else in this world has had as well, that there is always something getting in the way. Always something preventing you from saying something. In every situation, you can argue yourself out of everything.
And this is how it was, this is how it always is.
When everything is over, the first thought that everyone has consuming them is what they could’ve done differently. What they should’ve said when they had the chance. And I can only imagine it’s the deepest regret and lowest feeling one can experience.
I also unfortunately believe that love fades. Everyone knows this, even if it’s deep in the back of your mind and you still haven’t come to accept it. Spend enough time with someone, it’s only human to grow sick of them. A terrible tragedy, to be sure, to grow old of love, but a true one nonetheless.
I was listening to this voice in the back of my mind. Some people call it madness, some doubt, but I call it reason.
So you see, it’s all a way to escape the inevitable. To preserve love, to establish hope. To never lose faith. It’s all for now. It’s all for this moment.
Death changes everything; it was my outlet.
I’m forcing myself to be the person I should be, to be the person who I want to be.
Or more, I forced myself.
Nothing is better left unsaid.
And when I walked in there, she looked at me and I at her. And it came out. I said it and for the first time in my life, I held nothing back. I was pure.
I didn’t care how Hollywood it sounded.
‘I remember the first time I’d fallen for you. And when I say fallen, I mean every time I saw you I never stopped looking. I mean every time I was somewhere, I wish you were there beside me. I mean, when every other moment was just a moment leading up to the next one I had with you. I didn’t know why it was you, but things like that aren’t important. What’s important was that it was you. And right now, I love you more than I’ve ever thought I could love anything. You’ve made me who I am and without you, I have no idea where I’d be and I don’t want an idea. You are everything I hoped for and everything I didn’t expect and everything you’ve ever said is running through my head right now. We all make our own definitions of love and you are mine. You are the reason I will be happy for the rest of my life.’
That’s what I said, more or less. Except with a lot more crying and in a deafened whisper.
Oh god, it can’t even be explained.
Inexpressibly morbid, you could say, but undeniably poetic. And to be put simplest; lovely.
Every time I remember, I smile.
It may be faint, but it’s certainly a smile.