The Fight (Republished)

Chapter 17: Facing The Day

I'm afraid that I'm a horrible storyteller. I never wrote anything after I left my last entry to check on my wife. She was coughing like crazy at one point. She even puked as well, but she assured me she was fine. Fine never means fine, I know. I called for a nurse to check on her and she said it might be from the pain medication, or just a symptom of... fading.

I don't know what each symptom is indicating, but I guess I should be thankful she's not coughing up blood. Can't say I've ever coughed up blood before, but that would definitely be a bad sign. I had chronic nose bleeds when I was younger, but what my wife is going through now is far worse. She's been so strong up to this point, but I can feel her pushing away ever so slightly. Lars can feel it too. She hesitates now when her mother, or I try to hand him off to her. It's like she's afraid he'll get sick too and she doesn't want to pass it on. I've asked the doctors about that possibility and they said if anything was to be passed on, it would have been through birth. So he's in the clear, but she can't see that anymore.

Every time she hesitates to take him, he squirms as if he feels her rejection. It's not that she doesn't want to hold him anymore, she's just scared. I can see it in her sunken eyes. She's getting thinner by the day and the bags under her eyes make it hard to look at her. I still remember the first time I saw her in the hospital. She was pale and looked sick, but nothing compared to this. I joked that she looked like a zombie back then, but I was saying it to make her laugh. Now though, I can't say anything. There are no jokes that I can crack that will bring a smile back upon her face. Her days are numbered and she knows it.

As rough as she looks, I still look into her beautiful brown eyes as if we were back in that moment of our wedding day. Her pinned up hair, the sparkling earrings, her smile... that was a special moment for us. It was a perfect moment. I'm sorry... I'm fighting back tears again. All those moments... I can't let go. I don't. I don't want to let go. If only you could see my face right now, the pain and agony that has engulfed me. You'd know this isn't some monotone story. It's full of so much emotion that my eyes are boiling over with tears right now. Fuck. I don't want to tell you anymore. I didn't have to tell you the truth, but I need to. I need to get this off my chest... I'm crying... and sniffling as my nose begins to run... my mouth... it's trembling. I'm nearly choking as I try to hold everything back... are you getting a good visual now? I hope you are, because you should feel my pain. All- All... fuck... all this pain.

Holding back is so much worse than letting it go. Letting it all out. Hurts. Damn tissues. I just wasted one in an attempt to wipe my nose.

Okay. I blew my nose and wiped my tears up. I feel like a mess. I'm glad no one else is in here right now. I'm still wiping snot from my upper lip.

"Babe?..."

"Yeah," I reply. "I'm here."

Her voice is so weak that I could barely hear her. I walked over to her bedside and looked down at her. Her brown eyes staring up at me, I can't tell what's on her mind. I can usually tell by the look in her eyes, or the expression on her face, but neither were giving me any clues. Her eyes were hollow and her sunken face was losing its life, and fast. I knew the end was coming and after fifteen days, she managed to beat the doctor's estimate by one day.

A couple of weeks, that's all he gave her. I wished his guess was off by more, but it didn't seem like it. She had been holding on for so long, not wanting to let go. Her fight was almost over. I was proud of her. I was proud of my wife. So proud.

"Don't cry," she whispered with what voice she had left.

"Kind of hard not too," I told her. "You're dying. And I'm going to be alone."

Tears poured from my eyes as if the flood gate was stuck wide open. My entire mouth was trembling now and I was being brought over the edge again. She raised her hand and I took it in mine, resting it against my cheek.

"It's time," she announced softly.

"No... no... not yet." There was a long pause as I was choking myself, unable to breathe. "Not yet. Wait for Lars and your mom. Please," I managed to add, squinting through more tears and sniffling as my nose ran as much as my tears.

Her eyes closed for the final time in that moment. I don't know how I didn't choke myself to death as my throat seemed to constrict as no air, nor sound even, came from me. My mouth wide open, you'd expect some noise to come out.

The noise that I heard next was not my voice though, it was the heart monitor flat-lining. Still, no sound came from my mouth. I gasped for air and twisted my mouth as I nearly drooled.

A nurse rushed in and set me down on the hospital room floor. All I could hear was the flat-line, more voices from nurses and doctors rushing in as I began to convulse on the floor. My face was covered in so many tears and so much snot that I didn't know what was running down into my mouth anymore. My head hurt and the pain wouldn't go away.

Someone grabbed me and said my name; it was my mother-in-law. She pulled me out of the way for the staff to try to save my wife - her daughter. I soaked her with my tears and snot as she hugged me, my face buried in her hair as I then heard my boy crying.