Till Death Do Us Part

~ On nights like these when the ghosts of my loneliness come back to haunt me, you appear before me once more. ~

Somewhere laying in the back of our old bedroom are scrapbooks filled with photos of us from better days. On the fourth page there are images forever stuck in time of us looking down at our wedding cake adorned with "Till Death Do Us Part" with two plastic, miniature versions of us holding hands. What no one told those two little people was that in eight years, two months, and thirteen days that term would become their grim reality. 

Sometimes I still pull my dusty veil out of the closet we used to share and try it on just to remember what it feels like to be a bride, all wide-eyed and in love with the fairytale idea that marriage would see us through to our golden days. I used to dream of sitting next to you on our wooden wraparound porch, holding a glass of sweet tea in one hand and your wrinkled hand in the other. I wanted our children and our grandchildren to look at us and wonder how we’d made it work for so many years despite our big fights and our looming financial troubles. God knows what I’d give just to have one last fight with you.  

On the seventh page of the scrapbook there’s a faded sketch of the house you promised to build for me whenever we got the money. It’s a lovely little home, nestled right in between a set of weeping willows on the side of a country road. Though that home will never exist, I often go and visit it sometimes in my dreams. In those dreams, I see myself walking to an emerald green front door and turning a silver knob to find you inside, a dozen red roses in hand and the words, “Welcome home, Honey” falling gently from your lips. I take the flowers into my grasp and ask you where you’ve been this whole time. You look at me, puzzled, and say, “What do you mean? I’ve never left”.  

On the top shelf of our closet lies an old beat-up record player with a scratched-up vinyl of “The Best of Elvis Presley” seated on top of it. The summer we started dating, I remember laying at the foot of your bed, record player softly playing oldies music in the background, as we stayed up talking all night about our future plans before your mother chased me out. I remember sitting in my car smiling to myself as I pulled into my driveway, knowing in my heart that you were the boy I was going to marry someday. I clutched the ticket to the upcoming school dance you’d invited me to earlier that day in my hands, dreaming about slow dancing with you into eternity.  

The moment I first knew I was I in love with you was on the very last day of our senior year of high school. I fell in love with you the way all eighteen-year-old girls fall in love: hopelessly and irreparably. I knew I’d been crushing on you for a while, but something about watching your silhouette fade in the distance made me realize that there was something about you that I needed. Watching you walk away and knowing that it may be the last time I’d ever see you put an ache in my chest that even now I can’t quite describe. When I called you that evening to tell you how I felt, I didn’t expect for you to reciprocate my feelings. On our first date you took me to see a movie we’d both been dying to see, and as we walked back to your car, there was something about the way the stars looked that night that made me realize that you were the last beautiful thing I’d ever have.  

~ No one ever tells you how bad it will be, living without the one who gave you a reason to live. You’ll wake up one morning, just as numb as ever, and convince yourself that maybe today will be the day you decided to start living again. You put on your clothes and head to the grocery store only to realize that everyone, everything, is him. The sound of the checkout man’s voice is just a little too familiar, every person you make eye contact with has his eyes, his hair, his nose, and you rush out of the store, bread and milk still in your abandoned shopping cart, to be alone. But what they never tell you is that you can never truly be alone when the demons inside your head all have his name. They never tell you that your biggest source of life and happiness can also be your greatest source of destruction. ~ 

I remember the way you looked at me on the night of our engagement; how upset your parents were when you told them the news. That dainty little ring on my finger always felt incredibly heavy, a constant reminder that the hopes and dreams for the daughter-in-law your parents always wanted were crushed the second you asked me those four words. I tried to give the ring back to you so many times, but each time you refused. I always knew deep down that I was never good for someone like you, but the way you looked at me that night made me swear to Heaven and Earth that I would do everything in my power to be enough for you. 

 My god, I sure hope that I was enough for you.  

I walk past the weeping willows swaying in the warm September air and approach a house with a wraparound porch where an elderly couple sips tea and watches the last bit of sun disappear behind the rolling hills. I smile at them as I turn the cold, silver doorknob to reveal you standing on the other side, a dozen roses in hand and a wrinkled ticket in the other. You put the roses aside and step closer to me, hand outstretched, asking me for one last slow dance. Elvis Presley plays softly somewhere in the background. He keeps asking me if I’m lonesome tonight, but I never get the chance to answer him because I’m much too caught up in my final waltz with you. I know that none of this is real, I know that I’m merely dreaming, but I’m determined to never wake up again. If sleep be the only realm in which you and I can be together, then I shall never be awake another day.  

As we sway back and forth, I notice something eerily familiar about this moment; something keeps telling me that I’ve danced with your ghost a million lifetimes before this one. I look up to where the ceiling should be and see stars hanging above our heads as I fight to savor every second of the moment; the last beautiful moment I’d ever have.