Trains of thought

4 am. Awake. Awake as always. Why can't I sleep? I know the reason. But I don't want to admit it. The reason is lying right next to me, breathing in and out and with every breath he takes, he exhales a little bit more of his precious life.

"Mrs. Evans, your husband has still a month left. Maybe two, if he's lucky." The doctor's words are still echoing in my head. They came experienced over his lips. Some pity swung through them, but his eyes were cold. They spoke differently: Another hopeless case, like he had so often experienced in his career. He didn't care.

I look wistfully at the love of my life. The moonlight brightens his face. It's still as beautiful as years ago. But I neither have seen nor heard his beautiful laughter in a long time.

Tears are rising in my eyes, numbing my face. Now is the only time I allow myself to let them fall. I sob quietly. He shall not see it. Shall not see how I cry over him like he's already gone. I try to give him strength. It's a joke. If I have no strength, how am I supposed to give it to him? But I try to be strong. Not to be the fate-shaken woman everybody sees in me. Their pitiful looks are burning on my skin when I'm walking across the street. "That's Liz Evans. You know, her husband is deadly ill. How terrible and that in her condition." When I pass them they stop talking and feign their pretended pity. Not one of them knows my sorrow, my pain.

The tears are running further, moistening the child's roof. His child that grows below my heart. He'll never see it, scoop it up in his arms and show it around like a proud father.

It's being deprived. Deprived of a loving father as well as its mother. For, can I still love when he's gone? Can I still feel something when I see something of him everywhere, still sense him everywhere, but can't touch him?

That's selfish. Not only of me. How can God be so selfish and take him away from me?

"I thought you didn't believe in God?" "I believe in you."

The tears are running down my cheeks again. No matter what I think my thoughts will be forever with him. Always fixed at the way he's waking up in the morning and falling asleep at night. How he's going to work and calling at noon, impatient like a little boy, to tell me that he loves me. How he's bringing me a white rose every now and then. How am I supposed to ever continue my life?

Again, I look at the once so powerful body, which now seems more fragile than ever. But something has changed. My stream of tears stops. The sounds. They're gone. The sound of breathing left him. Cautious, as not to wake him, I lean over him. Catch one last kiss from his lips. They're still warm.

I should cry now, be sad, maybe even go into hysterics. But in some strange way, I'm happy. Happy that he made it. And I know that he'll always be there for me. Wait for me.

For in my heart, he will never stop living. There, he will always exist. Like in his child.

I'll always love you, Maxwell Evans!

Don't ever forget that on your way.

END