Daydreaming

No More Life

I took a long breath, in and out. I parked my car beside the walkway leading to her final resting place, and grabbed the flowers from the passenger side; white daisies, her favorite. Today was the day. It's been one year, one whole year. It's been rough adjusting to the absence of her endearing spirit, but she wouldn't want me to wallow. She always tried to spend her days as lovingly as she could, and it earned admiration from us all. She kept me on a positive track, and refused to let me get distracted by negative emotions for too long. She kept me on my toes for sixty-one years.

I met her when we were still in college, and I couldn't have been more happy that my parents forced me to go to a place I hated, because it brought me the passion of my life. She was so young back then, but she wasn't sweet and innocent as one would think. No, she was just as sassy and hot-headed back then, as she was the day she closed her eyes one more time. My baby, Mary, was always a contradiction, and never was what you expected her to be. For example: She was majoring in business and finance, but she also taught a ballroom dancing class. She loved scary movies, but hated Halloween. Her favorite color was red, but she hated red roses. These tiny details are the reasons I fell in love with her.

As we had grew old in age, it seemed only her skin kept up with the numbers. Her love of life and positivity never faded. She was as active at 84, as she was at 23. Her eyes would never tell you her age. They remained round and glassy all the time. They held thoughts and emotions as readable as a book. They spoke to me when her lips wouldn't whisper a word. I was in love with her eyes. Her kindred spirit was still with me, in each breath I took, and without it I do not think I would've survived the first day without her.

That is an emotion I can never quite explain. Losing someone you treasured so much, was something that craved words that didn't exist. It's like someone attached blades to each of their fingertips, and took your heart and squeezed it. The blades stabbing into the organ puncturing it, as they let go. When they took their hand away, the holes it left behind drains you of any other emotion, and leaves you with pain. This is how it feels after the initial blow, but over time, each hole is replaced with new muscle. The scars still remain after the hole is replaced, and they hurt, but only when it is reminded of the old muscle.

Am I happy? Am I depressed? I'm in this weird place, in the middle, where I miss her so badly, but then I remember what she did. I remember who she was, and I become happy in her memory. It's like a comfort of mine. I know one day we will be reunited again, and in that moment I am at peace.

I have a picture of her in every room, and I keep her wedding ring on a necklace around my neck at all times. That was one of her requests, when she spent those awful yet sweet last days in the hospital. She spent a month there, before asking to be relieved of her suffering. She didn't want to leave me, but we both knew it was her time to go. I didn't want to beg her to stay, because I didn't want her to be in absolute misery for however long. It was a waiting game with her illness. The doctor said that it could've been one day, or up to one year. That was scary. The fact that he put a number on her days, was a terrifying statement, but she took it like a champ like she always did. She never complained, even when it was absolutely obvious that she was in agony. You would ask her how she was feeling, and she would reply that she was really enjoying that fact that she woke up this morning, and with that she was joyful.

The last day she spent with me, we were both so solemn. The nurse had distributed her some sort of shot that would eventually slip her away into a deep sleep, and she would wake up standing in front of the gates of Heaven. She wasn't attached to any machine, and this included the dreaded heart monitor. We cracked jokes, and discussed politics, and argued about how I needed to start picking up after myself; normal conversations we had our entire relationship. The entire time while doing so, she had music playing. She almost always had music playing, and on this particular day, she had some oldie radio station playing. It played all sorts of hits, and even things that sounded as if they were one-hundred years old. I picked on her about it, and she obviously fired back at me for it.