Snippets of Writing

1.

Loss

You left an empty half on the bed.

An empty chair at the table.

A void in my heart.

Whenever our youngest runs up to me and asks where Mama is, I cannot look him in the eye.

Whenever I sleep at night, I miss your warmth beside me.

Whenever I make dinner, I forget to make it for four, not five.

With every waking moment, my heart aches for you.

Our house used to be alive with the sound of your laughter, your singing as your braided our daughters' hair. But now all is silent, and none of us can laugh anymore. Our daughters go to school disheveled and crying and our son wonders why none of them will tell him where Mama is.

Our garden used to thrive with life- fragrant in the spring, green in the summer, bountiful in the fall. Now nothing grows there but weeds, choking the life out of the tender green shoots that you planted before they found your tumor.

I know that you must be in a better place now, my love, but I cannot help but wish that you were back with me.

Your ghost haunts me, but I cannot feel your touch, cannot hear your laughter. Oh, how I long to hold you in my arms again...

It has been fifteen years since I lost you, my dearest, and I cannot stop thinking of you.

Yesterday would've been your birthday. Do you remember the time when I surprised you with a party, all those days ago?

Fifteen years have passed, fifteen long years. Liam, our youngest, is eighteen now. I wish you could see him as an adult, my love. He is quiet now, so quiet...

Angelina, our oldest, is twenty-nine now. Twenty-nine! Oh, my love, you're a grandmother. Didn't you always want grandchildren?

Last week, her little daughter asked why she had two grandfathers but only one grandmother. How my heart hurt to think of you...

Sometimes, I feel like your ghost is following me, guiding me. That you're my guardian angel. Do you remember when we first met, and I used the classic pick-up line and told you that you'd fallen from heaven? Oh, what I'd give to be living back then, young and carefree, with our whole lives ahead of us...

My hair is threaded with grey now, and I cannot help but remember when we pledged to stay with each other until our heads were white and our skin wrinkled. Do you remember? We were only seventeen.

Yesterday, I was cleaning out the old attic and I found your wedding dress. You looked so radiant on that day, like an angel come down to heaven. You made me the happiest man on earth, my love, and now you have made me the most sorrowful.

I want to ask you to come back. I want to ask you to return to me, to let me hold you one last time, feel your lips against mine, but I cannot, for you are beyond the reach of all mortals.

Everything I go, everywhere I go, everyone that I meet reminds me of you.

Of my loss.

I can only pray to join you soon.

short story originally published in another collection of short stories