Peace and Hope
She was at his bedside. In a moment of lucidity, he looked at and reached for her hand. She hadn’t noticed he was awake and his reaching startled her. She gave him her hand, and they sat there like that looking at each other, not talking.
He had been in and out of delirium for some time and had been in denial before that, and now they sat together. They had peace, after so many days of difficulty and hope. Not hope for recovery. She knew there would be none of that: but this. This quiet sitting. This was what she was hopeful for.
He had been an awful drunk for many years. She had put up with it out of hope. And she forgave him out of hope, when he finally asked for it. She sat, now, in hope. They had very little else. He said:
“Well, I guess I do this one alone, huh.”
“Yeah…,” she said. “I think, we all do this one alone.”
“But you’ll be here, right?”
“Yes. I’m not leaving.” He leaned back in the bed and looked at the ceiling. Then he looked back at her and lifted his other hand from the far side of the bed. He tried, but he did not have the strength to bring his hand across to hold her hand with both of his, and so he rested it quietly over his belly.
“It’s the only one we don’t really have a choice on, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think it’s the only one.” And then a little later, he said:
“I’d do it again for this right here. You and me like this. And all of that back there behind us, just to be right here. Just like this. You know?” He was kneading her thumb between his thumb and index finger. Then the clock stopped. It finally stopped, just for them. The planes froze in the air. The fires and the bombs halted, pain ceased. Love didn’t falter. It didn’t crumble. It stood. The whole world stopped and stood there and waited.
“I know,” she said.
“We had hard times,” he said. “I could have been better to you. I feel awful that I can’t do more to make it up to you. You know I never would have wanted to if it hadn’t been with you.”
“I know,” she said. “I know.”
“It was a good run though.”
“It was good.”
“The big one you do alone though.”
“I think so,” she said. “I think the big one we all do alone.”
“But you’ll be here though, right?”
“I’ll be here. I’ll be right here. I won’t leave.”
“I’m really going to miss you.”
“I know, sweet heart. I know.”
And they sat there like that for a long time, peaceful. He was 53. She was 45. He was the only man she’d ever been with.
He passed in the night, after the clock started again. It had not been peaceful, despite the drugs. Though she had hoped that it would be.
One day, many many years later, there would be a different man and he would be sitting at her bedside, in much the same way she once had, and as she laid there, she would remember her time with her first husband and when he had passed away and how she had lived so very many more years without him than she had with him, and how much more peaceful those years had been. Peace and hope. Sometimes that’s all that there is. Sometimes there’s only peace and hope.
