Always and forever

5 - Suspended

Sanem

Can is stable, we are standing in front of the window of the room where he is being treated with Aziz, Huma, Emre and Layla, the doctor tells us that he will soon be released from the intensive care unit and will be transferred to an ordinary ward.

- We will slowly start a process of awakening, we don't know what consequences he suffered from the severe trauma to his head when he hit the car at the time of the accident and the lack of oxygen his brain suffered during those moments when his heart stopped. We just have to wait and see what happens -

Layla wraps her arm around my shoulders to comfort me, I've been in this corridor for two days, I only left for a few minutes to freshen up and change into the clean clothes my sister brought me. I can't get away from him, I have to see him, I have to see his chest rise and fall with his breathing, I have to make sure his heart is still beating.

Once he has been transferred, the doctors try to wake him up but to no avail, his eyes are irrevocably closed, his body immobile, they tell us that this can happen, it takes time for the hematoma that has formed in his skull to reabsorb and no longer put pressure on the cerebral mass, there is nothing we can do but wait.

Days turn into weeks, I left the hospital for a few hours just to go home to take a shower and rest, then I'm back by his side, I can't stay away from him. The day we had fixed for our wedding arrived, a day that was supposed to be the most joyful of our lives passed in the sadness of his immobility that devastated and terrified me.

One morning I saw the chaplain appear, he had officiated that terrible night, at my request, at the short ceremony before Can closed his eyes and never opened them again.

- Good morning madam, I have brought you the marriage documents -

I look at him questioningly thinking about the wedding which had been planned for a long time and which unfortunately could not take place.

-It is perfectly legal, it is foreseen that in these emergency situations it is possible to carry out a reduced ceremony like the one we officiated, all that is needed is my presence and your consent, which was given, therefore it is perfectly valid, you are husband and wife to all effects. I wish you all the best and that you may soon resume your life together görüşürüz, goodbye-

I take the document he is handing me, stunned at the idea that despite everything we had our happy ending, I had completely forgotten those moments of despair when I had called the chaplain, I thought it was something that only had value for us, an exchange of solemn promises made with all my heart in a moment of extreme drama.

I greet the chaplain and shake the hand of my Can, my husband.

-Did you hear that, Can? We are husband and wife, please come back to me lütfen, please come back to live with me our happy ending, our forever, the one we have been waiting for so long and deserve. Lütfen, please-

I won't tell anyone, I want to tell everyone the news when Can wakes up, we'll make an unexpected surprise together to family and friends.

The hours and days drag on slowly and endlessly, I spend hours talking to him, holding his hand and telling him what we will do once he is cured, I read and reread aloud my book about our wonderful love story and the love poems of the authors we have both always loved.

We are suspended in a space where time expands infinitely and has no boundaries, it is as if we were in the fairy tale of "Sleeping Beauty" and a spell has fallen on our lives and everything has stopped waiting for his awakening.

Once again my heart is gripped in a vice of anguish, once again we are divided, but this time it is not the ocean that stands between us, it is an unfathomable space where no one can reach him and call him back to reality.

Our lives are suspended, I myself feel suspended in a dimension where even breathing seems to require a titanic effort, I need to believe that he will come back to me soon, I must be strong and have faith in him.

I'm sure he will come back once again, he will find his way to me again, I'm sure, I just have to wait.

Can

I feel suspended in an endless darkness, everything is silence and darkness, no sound, no perception, no pain.

Suspended, that's how I feel, suspended waiting for something or someone, what happens to me? Where am I? Why don't I feel anything? Am I dead? Shouldn't I be in heaven then?

I feel a pressing need, I feel that I must do something, as if I feel I am called to act, but what?

I must search, search for a road, a way that will take me... where? I don't know, out of this darkness, there must be light somewhere, I must find it, I must return, I don't know why but I feel a disruptive force telling me that I must return.

But where and, above all, to whom?