My darling, her eyes look like yours. Long black lashes outlining a ring of glacial
blue.
How I wish I could be with you. How I wish that I could watch her grow and
sleep by your side, our feet intertwined, as we become old and grey.
When I felt the blossom of life inside me, I knew it would
be the end of our time on this earth.
So, I made the hardest decision.
I held her in my belly and held you both in my heart until her arrival,
which became my departure.
After my living heart and body stilled and began to cool, I
watched you with her. I watched your
face when the doctor came to tell you of our baby girl, the final product of
our undying love for each other. I
watched your face when you learned I would never hold her; that you would never
again wake to watch me sleep beside you.
I watched you crumble and think you, too, would die.
It’s funny how the living heart can keep beating even after
the reason you’ve lived for so long is gone.
Funnier still how the living heart can stop and the love within it can
stay alive.
This is what’s become of my love for you, dearest.
I lay beside you each morning as the golden sun shines in
our bedroom window, the motes dancing with joy only the early morning
brings. I keep you warm each night while
you sleep because I know your body radiates out heat like a skin-covered
furnace. I sit beside you as you
make our little girl chocolate chip banana pancakes, something you were always
better at than me. I remind you to
put the milk away and to make her lunch so that she never has to eat food from
the school cafeteria.
I help you out of your chair at night and push my hands
through your hair so you can fall asleep quickly.
I never let anything hurt her.
And no matter what you do in this life after my body has
left you, know that I will be with you until one day, not long after our
daughter delivers a daughter of her own, you fall asleep in your armchair and
come to be with me.
There are things I have been waiting so long to show you, my
love.
