Broken Words - Paul McCartney, John Lennon

The Death

For the second time that evening, a woman was crying. Linda had not dared to think her husband could be dead, but he was. She knew that now. Paul was dead.

Seated in the waiting room, Linda had yet to call Heather and Louise. She was uncertain if Paul was actually dead. She had not heard any beeping from a machine, like how the movies had it. She had only heard the words of a doctor,

"Your husband, he's not doing alright. He may succumb to the coma soon. I'm sorry, Mrs. McCartney."

It was ridiculous, stupid for her to believe the doctor, but Linda could not form her own opinion of the manner as she had not been admitted to the hospital room of Paul. She should have been, Linda knew. But the doctors were doing their best to revive Paul, or so they said. Linda did not know what to believe.

She sat in a hardback plastic chair, head in her hands. She was not crying; she was too tired for that. She could not grieve properly if she did not know the answer she was waiting for. Her blonde hair was a mess, after having run a hand through it several times over the past hour. She was confused, in denial, and certain. Certain that Paul was a fighter, would fight for her and the kids. And John. The Paul Linda knew was more determined than anyone to fight through something blocking his way. Paul would succeed; he would survive. All Linda had to do was hope her assumptions were the truth.

She sat there in the chair for a while. Linda was not counting the minutes. What she did count were the moments she had spent with Paul; it pained her to think her last conversation with Paul was an argument about the death of John and if Yoko had felt sorry for what had happened. Linda could care less about what anyone else felt in the moments she spent there in the hospital, sitting and sitting and sitting, without an answer, without a clarification of what had really happened when she had found Paul in their hotel room, passed out and alone.

It had scared her at first, seeing her husband like that. But she had phoned the hospital, and Linda had watched an ambulance arrive and took Paul away to the hospital. She had gotten a ride from the local police, who were investigating the scene. It was a terrible occurrence, a terrible coincidence to have both John Lennon and Paul McCartney die in a matter of days between where one death began and the other ended. Linda could hardly think of it as an actual reality, but the feeling she was alone was not a fantasy. She was alone in the waiting room, left alone to listen to the screaming fans outside the hospital. Some were calling her name and sending her condolences through the glass window. The majority of them were crying. Linda looked away from them.

She started humming, "Another Day." She tried to tell herself that was all it was, just another day in her life. There was nothing to be worried about, nothing at all but another day. Just another day.

The door to the waiting room opened. A doctor different than the first entered the room. He said, "I'm sorry," and that was all he got out before Linda burst into tears.

"Mrs. McCartney, please."

After a short while, when Linda had composed herself with thoughts of Paul well and happy and alive (or so she thought), she snapped at the doctor, "Just tell me he's alright, please."

The doctor looked at the grieving woman once then shook his head and left the room.

That one singular motion told Linda all she needed to know, that Paul was not alright, had not been alright. That he - he was dead.

The waves of sorrow and grief had overtaken her again. Linda leaned over and down until her head had met her open hands. The tears fell from her eyes and slipped through the spaces between her fingers, onto the cold, tiled floor of the room. Linda was crying, for the uncertain and the certain; for Paul's death and Paul's life. Certainly, he was not dead. Certainly, her husband was alive.