A collection of short stories

I wish you were here

The gloomy atmosphere sets in yet again. The rocking chair moves back and forth with the wind, the emptiness is breaking in again. I should be happy. She was in pain, she's been freed from the clutches of suffering, but she took my heart with her, my love, care, and everything about me. She was my better half, my missing piece.

Maya, my neighbor walks in, "Hey...it's time for a support group." It almost slipped my mind. "Be there in a second," I tell her. Support group, for grief, for a family of cancer patients, for people who can barely control themselves. It reminds me of the good days. Our life changed in the matter of a second. We used to be so happy, it was three of us, me, Vera and Mickey. Now, Mickey and I just lay in our pool of tears and dread our misery. Mickey, my 4-year-old golden retriever is my only support system left. My pain is so much it's like somebody stabbing me with the sharpest knife repeatedly every millisecond. Hesitantly, I grab my coat and walk to the car, where I see Maya waiting. She utters, "I know it's hard but you have to understand that this is helping you, you can't be so late every time. Let's get going." Maya has been very helpful, she's very familiar with all this. She lost her wife to stage 4 lung cancer, 5 years ago. It's been a hard road for her, she has 2 little girls, she works tirelessly to support them.

We walk into the hospital, it just reminds me of all the terrible things that happened here. I hate this place much more than I can explain. I see some familiar faces, I go and greet Emily, Vera's best friend. She has stage 3 breast cancer. People always assume that she's gonna die, what they don't understand is that cancer patients have a possible recovery rate, and with consistent treatment, I bet she'll be back to normal in no time.

I see Maya waving to me, I walk to her and say, "Maya, I know it has begun but I really can't attend this, it's too much." She drags me into the room, where Paul is already narrating his story. People look at him with pity. God, it's the worst thing ever, pity and sympathy are two things I utterly despise. I sit in the uncomfortable red plastic chair which barely accommodates me. I feel pathetic and I hate being here. It seems Paul's done, people clap and resettle in their seats.

They announce my name next, I slowly get up and walk to the center of the circle. "Hi, my name is Anson and I lost my wife to stage 4 liver cancer. It's been a hard road, it felt like I lost everything and I did. We were married for 6 years, we found out she had cancer, 2 years ago. It was slow at first and the treatment seemed to be working. Eventually, her cancer started spreading rather quickly, within a year and a half it had reached her lymph nodes and other organs. We were told that she'd have 2 years to live but clearly that didn't work out. In her last few days, she was confined to her bed and she could barely move. They wanted to do an experimental surgery to see how far her cancer had reached, she was put on anesthesia but that was too much for her body to recover from. She went into a coma and had to be put on life support. I was then put in charge of deciding whether she gets to live solely through machines or die and leave me. Imagine such a situation where you get to decide whether your loved one lives mechanically or dies without a goodbye...

I was so struck for the first 48 hours. Then it hit me, the woman on life support wasn't my wife. The woman who loved me shared a home with me, smiled at the silliest jokes, laughed at our dog's antics, that was her. Her soul had left her body, it wasn't her anymore. I let her go. I let my wife go, in the hopes that she'd be happier, that she'd have a better life and that she'd look down upon me every time I look up at the sky. We loved stargazing together, we named the Ursa Major, the Vera Major, so that every time I see it, I remember her and our best memories.

I've had a realization and I want to share it with everyone out there. People leave. People leave and it hurts. You have emptiness oozing from every object they touched to everything you felt with them and it's all over in a second. Your heart weakens, trust issues deepen, depression sinks, and you? You break, you lose your fight because you have no motivation to keep going, and sometimes all you can do is let your tears seep in your holes and try. Try to keep holding on, because your part of the rope isn't on fire. So stay. Be there for your lost loved one but most importantly be there for yourself.

Thank you, because today I came up here and remembered who I was before, I felt like the man my wife fell in love with."