Repost for Valentine's Day

Holding on - Letting go

He knew she had no idea it was Valentine’s Day, or Tuesday, or February, or Indiana.  Did she know it was winter?  He wondered what his words sounded like to her.  He was sure she understood his tone.  She would sigh, just sigh, tired sighs and would sometimes wail him to heartbreak in her sleep, a keening hurtful  piercing of his soul.  It was getting more and more difficult to sleep with her, calming her into a round softness that fit to him was all but impossible now.  Holding her was like putting your arms around a bag of sticks and she would recoil at his touch and startle into a wide eyed fear so he’d lay on his back and his eyes would stare at the shadows of the room where she once knew him like no one has since or will again.  When she knew his name and his favorite color and what he wanted for dinner and how to starch his shirts and brush her hair.  

It turned into a joke, his heart shaped box of candy hastily purchased on this day every year even when his other gifts became  shiny or silky and were planned with love and care.   Always the gaudy box, red with gold cursive and piping.  Always left about for two weeks after, always eaten, left about like she wanted the tree left up til after New Years and the flag out long after the fourth, never wanting to let go, her roses tended and pruned the night before the first frost, always savoring the last bloom.

The irony wasn’t lost on him, thank God it was on her, her life now having let go of everything it once was.  She was forgetting to breathe, had already forgotten how to eat, the chewing futile when you don’t know how to swallow.  It wasn’t just her last Valentine’s Day, it was her last month, he wanted one more spring for her but it wasn’t going to happen.  He was loving her to death lifting the heartshaped lid and like always picking one he knew she wouldn’t like and biting into it making the face that made her laugh, raspberry.  

Her eyes followed him, he popped the rest in his mouth, patted her hand, felt more than heard her sigh and picked up the phone to call the kids, telling them to come soon and then plan on coming back again soon after.

Her eyes moved to the box making him hope just maybe her life hadn’t outlived her love.