The Unknown Tales: A Collection of Short Stories, One Shots, and More

An Ode

We were out of time. Not that we had time in the first place. The moment I called you back after that first date, we were out of time. I admired you while sitting behind you, you who stood in the middle of the sanctuary with your hands raised and the music flowing through you like a stream. I first loved you when you turned around and smiled at me and I saw your face for the first time.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way

When sorrows like sea billows roll

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say

It is well, it is well with my soul

We didn't know it then, but that pesky little clump inside your chest was already shortening your breath. It would be hundreds of smiles and kisses before you felt it and thousands before I noticed.

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul

I didn't want to say, but I never liked how long it took you to get over a cough. It seemed like you were never truly well before you were sick again. We used to joke that a little old man lived in your lungs and smoked his big brown cigars in there. I would tell him, while you wheezed for air, that he'd be getting an eviction notice in the mail. You'd ask how the letters would get there. I would shrug and give you another cough drop. I hoped maybe there were little letters in your inhaler for him, but he just didn't read them, or the smoke from his cigars burned them up.

Though Satan should buffet, though trails should come

Let this blest assurance control

That Christ has regarded my helpless estate

And hath shed His own blood for my soul

You were always stubborn, insisting on being outside even though it made your coughing worse later. We'd go hiking; I looked for the flattest paths that followed winding streams. You found the steepest, hardest trails and discovering glorious scenery: a waterfall glowing like fire in the sunset, a clear still pond, trees a hundred feet tall standing in a circle, a sheer cliff face plunging into a narrow river.

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul

You lived for the moments when a thousand birds lifted as one off the fields in a great roar of beating wings and darkened the noon sky. I lived to see the joy in your face and to hear you sing.

The cliff was the last wonder of the outside world we saw together before your health took the plunge, and we spent more time in the hospital than at home.

My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought

My sin not in part but in the whole

Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul

I could never understand your stubborn happiness through it all. Up with the sun and going until he slipped behind the dark horizon, you never once stopped to catch your failing breath. There is so much life you'd say to me whenever I wanted you to stay in and rest. You were right. There was so much life. I wish I had more of it. I wish I could have given all of mine to you.

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul

You always had that lopsided smile from the first day I met you that made me wonder if there was some joke I never got. It was contagious even in memory. The days when I couldn't get off work to see your smile before you went to bed were bleak days. I'd go to sleep as fast as possible and when I'd wake up and stumble downstairs, you'd greet me with that smile I missed the night before. I savored every moment I spent by your bedside in the hospital with you smiling and laughing.

The last time I got to see you was in that same sanctuary we first met, where I first fell in love with you. I wasn't ready to give you up. I already missed everything about you and pleaded to have you back. That's the thing about finding "the one", they might leave you to face a world with less kissing, less singing, less smiles, and a little less love. But they leave you the memory of those and that is far better than nothing.

It is well

With my soul

It is well, it is well with my soul