My husband was last heard from six months ago. His plane went down somewhere in Afghanistan, and no one has heard from anyone on that flight since. I wouldn't give up, when people offered me sympathy, I would shrug them off, shaking my head and saying, 'He'll come home, you'll see.' Eventually people stopped talking about Ricky, knowing how much I believed in him.

What I don't tell them is that in the past week, my hope has died. I know that this may sound silly to you, but I no longer think he's coming home. Do you want to know why? Because before he left, Ricky gave me six white roses and one red rose, one for every year we'd spent together. One by one those roses have died, now only my red one is left and the seventh month is speeding toward me. Every day I run to that rose sitting so serenely on my mantle, and let out a cry of relief when it is still alive and well, not at all fading.

I woke up today, and while I was rushing to my rose, someone interrupted me. A knock on the door, actually. There was a man standing there, and told me that they found Ricky's plane, and Ricky had died along with it. I said thank-you, and closed my door. I ran to my rose, and it was dead. It had looked so alive and well yesterday, the petals as red and as soft as the day Ricky gave it to me. A lone speck of red in a sea of white.

It took me hours to cry all my tears. I cried for hours, and in an attempt to feel closer to Ricky, I put on my wedding dress, and pretended to dance in the living room, but I was painfully aware of how I was dancing alone, with only a dead rose to watch. I plucked that rose from it's vase, intending to throw it away, like I had done with all the others, but I couldn't make myself go to the trash can, my legs carried me to my bedroom, and holding my rose in my left hand, I pulled Ricky's gun from the bedside table with my right. I laid upon the bed.

And I killed myself holding onto the last rose.

© Double I 4 My Guyz