Never Say Goodbye

Never Say Goodbye

The first time I met Michael, we were at my father's church. He was six years old, and I was five.

He gave me a magnolia blossom and told me I was the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

From that moment forward, we were inseparable.

When I was nine, I fell from a tree. Michael picked me up and ran with me, through the woods, down the gravel road. The cuts along the bottoms of his bare feet needed stitches, but he hadn't slowed once in his race to save me.

When I was fifteen, Michael threw rocks at my bedroom window. I snuck out the back door and made sure not to wake either of my parents. He handed me another magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and asked me to come away with him. We walked together to his daddy's field. It was in that spot, surrounded by cotton and the sounds of buzzing cicadas, that Michael gave me my first kiss.

When I was eighteen, my parents were in a car crash. The hospital had been cold, bare, and terrifying. Michael stayed with me the entire night. He held my hand in the lobby, waiting for news. He let me sleep, my head buried into his shoulder. He brought me tissues for my eyes and nose and helped me breath through the sobs. He was my rock when the nurse delivered the news, that both my parents, were gone.

When I was twenty, Michael took me out to dinner at a really nice place in the city. When we were almost done, he handed me a magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and asked me to be his wife. Two months later, we said our vows.

When I was twenty one, Michael joined the Marines. The day he left, he handed me a magnolia blossom, told me I was still the prettiest girl he'd ever seen, and held back his own feelings about leaving. I cried my heart out the first night without him, but he called me every chance he got. With time, things got easier.

When I was twenty three years old, my world ended. Two military officers knocked on my door. They said the only person that mattered to me was killed in active duty.

Three weeks ago, they told me Michael was gone.

So tonight, for the first time in my life, I stopped at a liquor store. I bought the largest bottle of whiskey they had available, not even caring about the brand or the price. The box full of home movies from the attic sits beside our television. Videos of Michael and I. Of us playing in the sprinklers as kids, of us leaving for prom, Christmas morning, our wedding day.

I'm alone on our couch, in our living room. The whiskey sits on our table. A bottle of antidepressants prescribed by our doctor sits beside it. A letter written to our family and friends is hanging on our refrigerator.

He's gone, and I can't bare to live without him. The pain is too much. It's unbearable. Each day it eats me up from the inside out. My skin feels tight. My chest hurts. My eyes are red and puffy from crying. My soul already died. It died with him.

I get up and place the first video into the player, and a copper headed little boy immediately smiles back at me.

"What are you doing Michael?" I hear his father ask from behind the camcorder.

"I'm waiting for Amanda," he answers, his eyes large and full of excitement.

I smile through the tears at the sight of him.

I switch the video to my birthday. Michael works the camera, trying to capture my reaction to his gift. I watch as the person I used to be opens the box, grins at the magnolia blossom, then lifts out a card.