Wintry Night

Sleep.  Sleep would be such a relief, the end to the constant pain gnawing at her from within.  She knew that it must have been cold because she remembered being so chilled that it hurt her lungs to breathe …her fingers had ached from the bitter cold slowly consuming her, but now it was warm, so warm.  The heat was heavy, blanketing her body and pressing her down into the hospital bed, so heavy that breathing was becoming a chore and her eyes must have been weighted because she longed to close her eyes forever.  It would be so easy to just give in, so utterly simple to let go and …sleep …

            His reassuring presence was at her side, his hands holding hers though she could no longer feel his sure grip, his familiar face blurring in and out of focus as she began to slip into the comforting darkness again.  There was something wrong with her, she was sure of it, her memories were fading away and everything hurt.  Sometimes she felt as though she were floating, the pain hovering nearby but dulled so that it was like a foreign entity, but other times she couldn’t gather enough strength to take a full, deep breath and she wanted to sob because of it.

            She remembered small things, trivial things, but she could not remember the terrible thing that had brought her to this state.  If she could just summon her voice, she could ask and someone would have to tell her, right?  They couldn’t keep something like this from a person, it was her right to know, but she couldn’t ask.  Her throat tightened up as she shuddered, moaning incoherently as she fell away from consciousness, her mind slipping back to the fateful few days she had banished from her thoughts and conscious memory …

There were tears standing in his eyes as he stood, their young son still dozing fitfully on the uncomfortable seats in the hospital waiting room.  He must have seen the frightened knowledge in her eyes, for he went to her wordlessly and took her into his arms, murmuring softly into her ear as she clung to him desperately, weeping quietly so as not to wake their little boy.  Her husband’s rumbling baritone helped to bolster her spirits and soothed her world-weary body.  She had been hurting so badly lately and she was becoming forgetful, never remembering where she had left her keys or forgetting where she was going.  The doctors and specialists they had been going to all arrived at the same conclusion: she was imagining it, it was all in her mind.  And, ironically enough, it was all in her mind.

            He wouldn’t ask her, oh no, he would never ask her, but she had to tell him anyway.  It was his right to know as much as it had been hers.  She would not let him worry, not knowing what was wrong like they had at first.  It took a great deal of strength to lift her head enough to look him in the eyes and to find the words to let him know, to impart the horrible information she had been given only minutes before.  This would break him surely, he would be able to make it, for their son if no one else, but he would be devastated.  “They say …I …brain cancer.”

            He gasped sharply and tightened his grip upon her, burying his face in her mane of strawberry-blond hair, crushing her to him in as much need of comfort as she herself.  Then there was a tugging at her skirt and she looked down through bleary eyes to see her six-year-old son rubbing his eyes sleepily with a balled fist as he continued to tug at her skirt.  Hastily wiping away her tears, she shared a troubled look with her husband and bent to the boy, hugging him close before holding him out at arm’s length.  Little Jonathan yawned and smiled at his parents before holding his arms up to his mother, begging to be held.

            “Mommy,” He mumbled cheerily.  “Love you,”

            And then she could no longer blink back the tears as her husband wrapped his arms around her once more and Jonny fell asleep in her embrace.  From that day on, they had gone all over the country and eventually the world, trying to learn if anything could still be done, if anything could have been done.  Each time they were met by a sorrowful answer, but never once did the hope blazing in the eyes of her husband flicker.  The last day she had been out of the hospital, they had stood nearby the fireplace, holding one another and watching the snow drift slowly to the earth, trying to capture one last moment to treasure while Jonny slept curled up on the couch with their black and white puppy.  And she had fallen as the snow fell, falling and falling so deep, so swiftly, and still his eyes had burned with hope …

It was so confusing to her now as her eyes fluttered open.  Wasn’t she just in the den with her family?  Weren’t they listening to the fire pop while carolers sang outside as the snow fell? Wasn’t she just lighting the last candle on the table as Jonny ran laughing towards the fireplace, stocking in tow with the pup at his heels, thanking her so quickly and so many times that his words stumbled over one another?  Jonny hadn’t known that this would be their last Christmas as a family, he was too young still to understand what it meant when mommy fell asleep and couldn’t wake up to watch him open his presents.  The puppy had been the only present he was allowed to open early and even the little dog seemed aware that her time was fleeting.  They had just been all together in the family room, and now she was lying in this unfamiliar bed, surrounded by strange machinery and people as her husband kept vigil at her bedside, Jonny sometimes in the room and looking lost.  She didn’t want to leave, she wanted to watch as her son grew up and went on dates and eventually married, she wanted to meet her grandchildren and celebrate a fiftieth anniversary with her husband.  She didn’t want to leave this world, but the pain was pressing in again, always the pain.  Her vision was ebbing, the darkness closing in, the gentle black that cradled her and kept the pain at bay.  Her husband sat quietly, still holding her hand, a solitary tear coursing down his cheek and she longed so badly to wipe it away, she wanted so much to sit up and take young Jonny into her arms, to ruffle his hair and kiss his forehead while chatting excitedly to her husband.

            But she knew it was too late for that, the golden times were gone and she was slipping quickly now, fading faster than she was able to fathom.  She saw then that her husband was at last resigned to her fate, and the flame of hope sputtered once, twice and went out in his eyes as she gave in to the eternal darkness and let the wave of black bear her away to another land far, far away from the pain, but far too from the ones she loved. 

Wintry Night

My hands are so cold tonight,

I don’t remember it being so chilly,

And my dreams have frozen like the water,

Caught in time and melting away so slow,

The sky is shame-faced and heavy with remorse,

Crying so softly, quiet tears of gentle snow,

As the branches become laden with frost,

Life stilled within the weather-weary limbs,

We are standing here inside before the fire,

The wind howls so eerily outside, I can feel it in my bones,

A low moan rising from the land,

Are you echoing it, or is that I?

This intoxicating warmth makes me shiver inside,

Your eyes boring into mine,

I cannot speak, my throat buried under emotion,

An avalanche inside me is threatening to take me down,

My fingers melt the icy pictures drawn on the glass,

My breath seems to crystallize in the air,

But it is warm inside, so warm, so warm,

Your gaze so final and sad,

The clouds are weeping on the barren land,

The wind hollowly blowing through deadened wood,

And still my hands are frozen