When I'm Gone

Introduction

© 2013 by Elizabeth Wendt. All rights reserved.

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The hand I cradled so gently was cold, lifeless, unmoving as though it didn't recognize the feeling of my touch. It didn't recognize the warmth, the love I was trying to give her in her last hours.

The monitor beside her bed beeped methodically, piercing the silence with its sword and drawing out each and every slow beat of her scarred heart and shooting a stabbing pain into my own.

The doctor said this would be her last day; he told me so a few hours ago. The doctor also said she would survive.

That happened months ago.

Her other hand lay still upon her chest and it rose and fell with each labored breath. It lay over her heart. Her hair had long since all fallen out, her skin was pale and thin, and everything about her was almost skeleton like. I only saw beauty.

I saw the chestnut curls tumbling over her shoulders, her soft pink lips turned up into a breathless smile as her green eyes laughed. I saw her cheeks, flushed with delight and how her eyes sparkled, glittering more brilliantly than the stars in the clearest night sky. I heard her laugh, how it left her lips as soft and beautifully as the music she loved to play. I saw how she moved, gracefully and aspiringly like the dancer she always wanted to be.

I choked on my own breath as it hitched in my throat, and yet I only squeezed her hand harder and bit my lip. I refused to let the bitter tears fall from my eyes. She made me promise not to cry. No, I wouldn't cry, I'd do it for her. I'd do anything for her.

But why did life have to be so unfair? There was so much more she had to live up to, so much she had yet to do! It wasn't fair, none of this was fair...

The beeping droned on, each pulse growing longer and slower.

Good bye, my dear. I hope you will be a dancer. I hope you will get your wings and then be dancing in the sky with the angels.

Goodbye, my dear.

I love you.