My Precious Flower

Chapter 11: Aggressively Broken

That moment was one of the most painful moments any grieving father or lover could go through. The shocking pain of loss would never heal in Tobias's aching heart. During the day of Paulina's melancholic burial, Tobias was present, along with several villagers who came to mourn her death within the graveyard at the center of the village. Her body, gracefully placed with their deceased baby on top of her, lay inside a large brown casket. Before the casket was closed, Tobias tearfully kissed her cold cheek one last time and placed her favorite flowers in her hands. As the funeral process concluded, the villagers left one by one, offering their condolences and leaving Tobias to his grief. Standing alone by the grave, Tobias was overcome with sorrow. His body shook with sobs, and his cries of despair came out just like it did back when he lost Paulina during the unsuccessful delivery of their unborn child. He fell to his knees beside the freshly dug grave, sobs wracking his body. The pain of his loss felt insurmountable, a wound that would never heal. His body shook with sobs as memories of that terrible day came flooding back. The day he lost everything, the day Paulina and their child were taken from him. The day he failed to protect them.

He cried out to the heavens, his voice raw and broken. "Why, God? Why did you allow them to die?"

"No one mattered to me like them," he mourned. "What did I do to deserve this pain? Please bring them back to me. I will not go on without them."

Death of a lover and a baby was too much for a wholesome man to bear.

Refusing to go on without them, the mental torture of losing them only got worse and worse.

With Paulina and their unborn child gone, Tobias had completely gone down the rails.

He stopped working hard as a carpenter and quitted his passion as a novelist.

Nothing can and nothing would be able to bring him the happiness he had before losing his loved ones.

He had checked out and lost everything.

His dreams, his future, his self-esteem, his mental strength, and his reputation slowly faded.

To make matters worse, he became an alcoholic to cope with his loss.

The aftermath of Paulina and their baby's burial left Tobias in a state of desolation. The once cozy and warm cottage became a prison for his grief, a place where his chaotic inner turmoil found comfort in. Weeks turned into months, and Tobias's decline in health got more serious and heart-wrenching. His physical appearance had changed a lot as he had come to neglect himself as a whole. His fuller cheeks had thinned down a lot and his once twinkly amber brown eyes became hollow and sparkless. The grief that gnawed at his soul also took a severe toll on his body. He was barely eating, and instead continued to turn into alcohol to soothe his relentless pain. The weight loss was noticeable and each day melded into the next, a miserable routine of mourning and delusion. He spent hours with a bottle in hand, drinking to forget but only sinking deeper into despair. His thoughts were consumed by Paulina and their lost child. He often imagined their presence in the cottage, speaking to shadows and ghosts that weren't there, lost in a delusional hope that maybe, just maybe, they would return to him. The once tidy and organized home now mirrored his inner chaos. Dishes piled up, dust gathered, and the air grew stale. The garden that Paulina had so lovingly tended fell into disarray, weeds overtaking the once vibrant blooms.

In the silence of the cottage, Tobias began to mutter to himself, his voice hoarse and broken. "If I had been faster... if I had done more..." But all that answered him was the sound of the wind and the clink of the bottle against the table as he set it down.

He buried his face in his hands, his body shaking with a grief that refused to be silenced. Why her? Why the baby? 

His internal grieving pain swiftly boiled to anger.