11.) "I miss you…" Merome, suggested by: HU4LIFE or HU4LIFE000
The beeping is constant. The air is cold, and the room is dark. I'm numb; I can't feel the bed beneath me or the covers on top of me, but I'm conscious. I can hear, and I can see, but I'm too numb to move. I can open my eyes, blink, and that's it.
All I can do is wait until they give up.
There isn't anything that anyone can do. I just want to see him again. I just want to feel his soft touch to my face, his fingers as they gently trail along my arms, my hands. I miss the comfort, the warmth. My parents are here again, talking as if I'm not around. Not here. By this point they don't hide anything, and I try to ignore them. I don't want to hear them. I want to hear him. But I can't help but hear. I can't drown them out when they're yelling, at each other, at me. And I can't talk. I can't ask the doctors to take them away. They wouldn't listen to me anyways; I can't take care of myself anymore is what I'm always hearing them say. And they won't let him speak for me.
The room is bright now; they've opened the blinds so I close my eyes again. I don't want to see. I don't want to feel- to hear and smell and taste… It's all so broken. I hear the words and they're foreign. They're the same words that I've heard every day, every month, for as long as I can remember by this point. My memory is failing, fading and fading into bits and pieces that I can scarcely place together; a puzzle missing so many parts that I just can't find. People come and go, people I recognize and can't place a name to. They talk, as if I should know what they're speaking of, and then they leave me alone again, in this room, this place…
I can feel every touch to my skin and yet they act like I can't. When they move me I can't reposition myself; I'm too numb. But my parents don't care about that. Sometimes it's my arm, or a wrist, a finger. I can feel pain swell, and then they let go, leaving a mark behind that the doctors overlook.
By this point in time I wish they'd just let me go. I don't want to be here, on this Earth- but they keep me here like a prisoner. And they keep saying that I'll never see him again. That he doesn't care. Doesn't want me anymore. They tell me to forget about him, that I should get better and move on. They tell me that he's never once tried to see me, that he's moved on and won't come back. And I know he'd never…
But it's so hard to believe that when I haven't seen him in years.
And I know that I won't live to see him again at this rate. But I want to see him. I want him to hold me, and tell me that it's okay. That the darkness doesn't last. That there's another place to go after death. I want his voice to be the last thing I hear. I want his warmth to be the last thing that I feel.
The doctors keep saying I'll get better eventually, but I know I won't. I don't even know what's wrong with me. It just happened. Everything was fine. It was lunch and we had just made food. I was bringing it to the table and I just collapsed. Everything left me. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It was so frightening, hovering on the edge of death. He's the only reason I'm alive. We got here, to this place, but I don't remember how. And I can remember him by my side after all of the chaos, the darkness. If I had known that was the last time I'd hear his voice, feel his touch upon my face, see the worry so crystal clear within his eyes I would have never let him leave that day, because now I'm so alone.
And what scares me most is knowing that I'm forgetting him. Sometimes I can't remember his face, or even his name. And eventually those little things won't come back to me like they have been. Eventually he could walk in, and I wouldn't recognize his voice, his smile, his beautiful eyes.
The ring on his finger.
The ring on mine.
All I want is him to walk in and hold me. I want to die, but not before seeing him one last time. Not without having the chance to say goodbye one last time. I want to cry with him, watch him smile bravely as the tears roll down his cheeks, listen as he whispers sweet nothings trying to ease the pain as the medications kick in. I want to know that he'll miss me, that he'll never forget me. I want to rest my head on his chest and listen to his rapid heartbeat as he thinks of trying to save me, of what could have been for us. Listen to his shaky breathing as mine begins to soften and my heart begins to slow.
As everything, begins to slow.
I want to feel his soft lips one last time, a gentle kiss as the few minutes we have together near an end. His warm breath caressing my face, his strong arms holding me, his warmth surrounding me. I want him to guide me through the darkness moment in my life as the guiding light that makes all the monsters disappear.
But it's all wishful thinking now. A mere dream. Because it's been years since I saw him last. Heard his voice, saw the gorgeous eyes of my loving, wonderful husband… and he's never come to see me. To hold me. Help me through this suffering.
Even still, wishful thinking… a dream… my desired departure of this world is all I'm thinking of at this moment. I can't recall when my parents left, when it got dark again. I have no sense of time anymore. All I know is what I can feel.
And all I feel now is my slowing heartbeat.
~Jerome~
They didn't even bother telling me when it happened. They didn't bother saying anything to me. I found out from Conner.
Months later.
They didn't invite me to the funeral. Didn't tell me where he was buried. Mitch didn't even want to be buried. He wanted to be cremated, for his ashes to be spread over the large oak tree in our yard. They stripped me of everything in his will. Left me with whatever was in our home.
And the ring I gave him.
I tried so many times over the years. To see him. To visit him. But they told the doctors not to let me in. Not to let me see him. Because apparently, I caused everything. They even called the police but I still tried. The police wouldn't listen… I ended up in jail for a month, on trespassing charges. Because apparently trying to visit your husband in the hospital is trespassing.
The word husband means nothing to anyone. The legal papers mean nothing. Our friendship that spans an entire lifetime- a marriage that spans almost 10 years: nothing. Our friends tried to help but people wouldn't listen to them either. But they could visit Mitch, and not me? They could visit my suffering husband while I get thrown in a jail cell for even trying?
Mitch was suffering in that hospital. All alone with nothing but doctors and nurses who didn't care, and medications and therapies that never did anything. With his homophobic parents. Our friends tell me he was unresponsive, never speaking, looking at them like he didn't know them. He never moved a muscle, completely paralyzed by god knows what. They tried, oh how they tried. But his parents were there in the room, every second of every visit. And if they mentioned one thing of me, they got kicked out and weren't allowed to come back…
And now I'm suffering. My husband and best friend is dead, and I wasn't there to hold him, to comfort him. I don't even know where he's buried. I'll never see his precious eyes and humorous grin ever again. I'll never hear his banter, see the bright eyes I was desperate to call my own. I'll never be able to hold his hand again, kiss his soft lips and skin, feel his warmth. His soul has left this Earth, his body gone.
I miss you so much, Mitch… I'm so alone.
Under our tree, our large oak tree with our initials carved into it, I sit. The sun is rising in the horizon, the dawn breaking, the sky glowing orange and pink. The tears are falling from my eyes, as I think of him. Of how he was the guiding light that pulled me out of the darkness. I think of how he held me, how he kissed me, comforted me… and I can't live with myself for letting him wander through the darkness alone as he passed on.
So, I won't let myself live any longer.
This is inspired by a story my mother told me. She explained a long while back that, even now in today's age, there are people unaccepting of homosexual marriages. People so unaccepting that they prevent the partners of their own children from visiting in hospitals.
99% of the time the partners have to put up with this, despite legal marriages. The partners get no say in what happens to their spouses. They have to sit aside and let it happen, denounce themselves as merely friends in order to visit their loved one. The doctors and nurses are legally required to prevent the partners from visiting, because the family forbids them from seeing their child. The other 1% of the time is when the partners find a nurse willing to risk their own job in order for the partner to secretly visit their spouse.
There were more details that my mother, a nurse, gave me of these kinds of situations, so much so that the reality of the story she told made me cry. I felt empty. And so, I started to write this, and I've been away from writing for a long time now but I've come back and decided to finish this. I know it's sad. That's the point.
I'm not entirely sure if this kind of thing still happens, but my mother has been that 1% of nurses before, wanting her patients to be happy. I hope more people are willing to be that 1%.
-Curse
