My husband was on his deathbed. He had cancer. The battle was one he had been fighting for months. Finally, tonight his fight would end. I had met him after my first year in college. We spent the entire summer together. The painful separation, after returning to college, drew me back to the love of my life. We had been inseparable ever since. I had hardly touched him in months because of the cancer. I was afraid to touch him, as if the cancer would crawl from his body into mine. This night, as we sat waiting for his death, I began to long to touch him. The uncertainty of when death would come was heart wrenching. His last breath could be seconds, minutes, or even hours away. Still, I knew it would be this night, and I waited with uncertain dread and anguish.
As I looked at him now, my sweet John, I was reminded of the day we'd met. I had just finished my freshman year at NYU and was spending the summer on the beach in Florida with some friends. Our first night in Florida, the only bathroom in our tiny rental house broke and we pooled our money to call a handyman. I think I must have forgotten my name when I opened the door and he was standing there in jeans and a t-shirt, tan, with a crooked smile, and muscles that showed beneath his shirt.
"Hi there" he said, "Did someone call for a handyman?"
I stuttered my reply and invited him in. The other girls were at the beach and I laughed inside thinking my mother would have a stroke if she knew I was alone with a boy.
The thought of that evening made me laugh inside all over again. The feeling of a laugh rising up inside of me felt foreign, like being somewhere for the first time. I had not laughed in so long and felt guilty over the impulse. As I sat there looking at him, I was astonished at how little he looked like himself these days. His body, once strong and able, now looked small and frail, like a withered flower wasting away in the summer's heat.
Our years together had been good, John's and mine. Our marriage was not without trials, but well worth the effort we had put into it. We made sacrifices for each other, and when our children came along, we made sacrifices for them. We were pleased with our lives, even through tough spots, as long as we were together.
I had left him that first summer, headed back to school. I got about as far as my dorm room. The loneliness I felt that night as I lay in bed overwhelmed the silence around me. Thoughts of John and our summer together flashed through my head. We had been blissfully happy then. Like most couples, we began consumed with the passion that was each other, we couldn't be in the same room without touching each other, a hand, a cheek, a simple brush of skin on skin to feel the electricity that passed between. But this particular night, the longest night of my life, I laid in my cold bed in the solitude and silence and longed to be back in Florida.
And back I was, the very next day. Leave it to the whims of a nineteen year old girl, my daddy would rant later when he found out I'd left NYU behind. But I didn't care what anybody thought. I knew I had found the love of my life and I couldn't let us be separated by anything.
Looking at my frail, sweet John, I noticed a faint smile on his lips. I wondered if our souls were linked so deeply after all of these years that he was remembering the same sweet time as me. I bent closer to his ear and spoke, "Remember John, the day I came back to Florida. You were so happy you cried. I've never regretted that day, never regretted coming back to you."
How could I regret the moment that changed the course of my entire life? John and I had gotten married a short month after that. We didn't tell anyone about our secret life, not until a few months later when my period was late. I probably could have gone on forever without telling anyone, mainly out of fear of my Daddy. But when we found out our little Ashley was on the way John said to me, "My sweet Emma, we can't just start a new life. You'd never forgive yourself for keeping grandchildren from your parents. Come now darling, it's time to face the music." And so face the music we did, together. That road trip back home to Alabama was torture. Fear doesn't mix well with an untimely Fall heat wave and morning sickness that couldn't tell time. I'll never forget how mad Daddy was the day we told him and Mama everything. I don't know how long it took for him to be alright, but by the time the baby was here all was forgotten.
Ashley came into the world on a stormy Sunday morning. It was just about sunrise when she made her appearance. Her mass of dark curls and deep chocolate eyes captured everyone around her, including my daddy.
Thinking of the birth of a child always made me feel warm inside. As if my body glowed at the remembrance of bringing forth life. I sighed deeply and once again turned my attention to John. He seemed to be struggling a little more to breathe. Each breath he took was short, raspy like a limb scraping over the tin roof of a shed on a windy day. His skin was pale and seemed to hang off of his wasted frame. Remembering our years together only made me long to touch him more, yet I still refrained.
Rather than feel my guilt over my fear of him, I went back to remembering. Our second child, Jesse was born in the summer of 1973. His beautiful blond halo put him in sharp contrast to his sister, and with him our family was complete.
John and I weathered more than a few storms over the years following. We struggled many times to make ends meet in the beginning with John's work being seasonal and me at home with the kids. John was so proud to start his own contracting company in the eighties, and I was proud of him. Life for our little family seemed to be perfect. We all thought so.
By 1991, both of the kids were gone. Ashley was a senior in college, and Jesse had just left starting his freshman year. John and I were happy to spend some time getting to know each other alone again. For a while, the house was quiet. We no longer had idle conversation to fill the silences, there were no more cheer leading practices, football games, or Saturday gatherings of neighborhood kids around our house.
As I sat reminiscent of the years past, I realized that our life was flashing before me. This is what happens when you die, I thought to myself. Even though I knew it was John who was dying, not me, a part of me, perhaps the biggest part, was dying as well. The peaceful look crossing over my sweet John's face told me he was replaying our life as well. His breathing was slower now, shallow and soft. I knew he would not be with me much longer.
We had not known of John's cancer for long. Only a few short months. In the beginning, when we were just starting all of John's therapies, he would whisper to me as we lay in bed at night, "It's been good, right Em? Our life's been good." Each time I'd respond, while choking back a sob in my throat, "I wouldn't change any of it, John." We prayed for John's therapies to work, we even prayed for a miraculous disappearing of the cancer. But our miracle was not to be. The cancer had invaded too much of his body, and John declined faster than any of us would have thought.
After a few weeks in the hospital, John wanted to come home. The doctors said keeping him comfortable was all that was left. So I took him home, my sweet John, and set up a bed for him in our study that overlooked our gardens. He's always loved the study, especially in the summer when all of the flowers were in bloom.
The children had said their goodbyes to John. Ashley had come last week with her husband and their two children. She laid her head in her daddy's lap and cried while he stroked her hair. They had gone home that day, promising to visit again this week, since they were only a few hours away. Jesse called everyday for the past few months. He had visited some for a while, but his wife was very pregnant with their second child, making her unable to travel much. They had promised to visit next month after the new baby arrived.
Despite all of the plans, all of us knew John would not live to see them. None of us were fooled into thinking our miracle would suddenly appear. All of us had made peace with John's dying, including John.
I did not realize I was crying until I felt a tear fall on my hand. I looked at John and was overwhelmed by the emotion of loving him and sharing life with him and losing him. I grabbed his hand, crying. I spoke in broken sobs, "Don't...leave...me..." I leaned my head over on his chest. He was so thin I could hear his heart beat as it thread the blood through his body. My body trembled with the grief I felt rising up inside of me. A peace I cannot describe entered the room and I felt a stillness wash over me. I felt John's hand come to rest on my head.
"I love you," I whispered into the hush of the night and I heard John sigh as his heart fell silent and his body relaxed beneath me.
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