Second Chances

The sun is sinking into an endless beautiful blue abyss. On a spontaneous whim, I am visiting the same spot Peter and I went when he was sick. The beach wanes down with tourists and I am sitting on a bed of rocks, thinking about the last time I spent with my husband, Peter. All my regrets were starting to overwhelm my thoughts. I have so many and wish I could take them all back. I start to cry. It’s been a hard year. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I was truly happy.

From the side of my view, I see a stranger lingering around me. 

“May I sit with you?” she asks in an empathic tone. I look up and there is kindness in her eyes. I give her a nod and she sits down.  She sees me crying and asks why I am feeling so much pain.

I don’t know why but I began to pour out my heart, telling her my box of regrets to this woman. I tell her how I lost my husband to cancer a couple of years ago, how I was unable to conceive and pushed my husband away. I treated him awfully and I would do anything just anything to have him back with me. She just sits there and listens as I tell her stories of broken hearts.

I told her the day the doctor’s gave my husband only a few months to live, I wanted to die. Words could not describe how I felt, knowing he was going to leave me alone. 

I mentioned we had a rocky marriage. But after finding out the awful news,  Peter didn’t let it get in the way of our love for one another. I reminisced about the last few months and how we fell in love again.

Peter was my first and only love. I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend. We met in college and after graduation, we moved into an apartment together. I decided to get my work on getting my masters in Botany and my dissertation was on redwood forests. One day, he said we were going on a trip to San Francisco. In the redwood forest, Muir Woods, he proposed to me.I was thoroughly surprised. Peter was like that, extremely thoughtful.

 The first few years of our marriage, we were happy. Until, we decided it was time to have children. We both wanted a big family. Peter would have been a great father. 

The first time I got pregnant, I had a miscarriage. Then two more. We decided to try Invitro. But, after great lengths and several attempts, it only ended in disappointment and grief. Then, the doctor said I was unable to conceive. I felt as though a part of me was ripped away. I wanted a child so badly and felt only a baby could make me complete, but my body didn’t allow me the blessing of a child.

At first, Peter was very supportive. He said we could adopt. But selfishly, I didn’t want to. Then one day, trying to console my broken heart, he built a greenhouse for me, knowing how much I love plants. He thought spending time in the greenhouse would give me comfort.  However, the greenhouse didn’t help. 

I lost any sense of joy and my state of mind started spiraling downwards. By then, I was on several different depression pills but the pills only made me lethargic. I couldn’t get out of bed and for a time was living only in my head. However, on the brink of getting fired from my job, I had to pull myself back together to go back to work. Fortunately, my job had the option of traveling, which I agreed to but that meant I would see less of Peter. I thought escaping was the therapy I needed.

Looking back, I should have realized that Peter was also hurting and how badly I neglected his feelings. The deeper I fell into my rabbit hole, the more distant we both became towards one another. I felt as though there was an ocean separating us and I didn’t know nor really want to bridge that gap.

We barely spoke to each other anymore. One day, I found divorce papers in a drawer, hidden under files and folders. Peter was entertaining the idea of a divorce and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t file. I knew it was my fault but my grief was too much to bare, and I couldn’t confide my feelings with my husband. This went on for several years.  We acted more like roommates than a married couple.

I started to notice a change in Peter’s health. He was getting more and more tired. He was losing weight in such a small amount of time. Peter just didn’t look healthy. I suggested he go see a doctor. He asked if I would go with him.

The doctors took blood work and a few days later, the doctor asked him to return to the office to go over the results. My heart sank. Why would the doctor ask to see us? It must have been bad news. A few days later, we were sitting in the doctor's office, waiting for the doctor to come in. My heart was beating out of my chest. Peter was holding my hand and said no to worry. He even tried to make jokes to get me to relax. Then the doctor walked in and by the expression on his face, I knew it was bad.

“Peter, I’m sorry to say but your blood work shows you have blood cancer. You have only a few months but we have new cancer therapies I would like for you to try. I know it’s not a cure to cancer but it would prolong your disease,” the doctor said in a soft empathetic tone. 

Without hesitation, Peter refused the therapies. I was shocked and angry by his response.

“How could you be so selfish?” I retorted to Peter, trying to hold back tears.

“Oh my darling Rose, I’m going to die. That’s a fact but I would rather spend whatever time I have left with you. I don’t want you to have to take care of me, waiting on me hand and feet as I’m throwing up or god only knows what else from the side effects. Please understand,” he pleaded calmly to me. “Now we can do all the things we wanted to do.” He went on to say how it was important to spend the rest of his days on this earth as my husband and not sick Peter. Feeling deflated, I managed a nod.

Once home, he went up to the attic and brought down road maps. He wiped off the dust and started marking every place we said we would visit but never did. I was dying inside. 

I tried to be strong when I was with him but it was difficult. I wanted to break down and cry but knew it would only make my husband sadder, so I saved my tears for the midnight moon. The next few months were amazing. I felt as though all the past trials and tribulations never happened. We spent every second as though it was his last. 

We went to Paris, visited the Louvre and ate cheese, jambon-beurre and macaroons. Next, we went back to San Francisco and then to Muir Woods, where he proposed to me. Under a beautiful redwood tree that must have been hundreds of years old, Peter went down on one knee.

“My darling, Rose, I want to thank you for being my best friend. I know it’s been difficult for you but there wasn’t a moment I stopped loving you. I know how badly you wanted a child and how it consumed our marriage. Every night, I wished upon a star, hoping the universe heard me. Granting us a child because you of all people deserved to be a mom. I wanted a child as badly as you did but could not possibly understand the deepest of pain you felt through the miscarriages. I should have tried harder to be your rock. So, take my box of regrets and let it burn,” Peter declared as tears ran down his cheeks. He took out two jewelry boxes. I opened them and saw another wedding band and a beautiful locket.

A waterfall of tears was rolling down my face. I apologized and told him how much I loved him too. Before putting on the necklace, he asked me to open the locket to read the engraving on it. 

“To my beautiful Rose, your love is a bloom I’ll always cherish.” 

Suddenly, the fog from the marine shrouded the forest. In a lover’s trance, Peter embraced and then passionately kissed me as though we were love struck teenagers.

Our final destination, we decided to go back to Maui, the same place we went on our honeymoon.  Every night we sat on the bed rocks over looking the most beautiful coral. We watched the sunset filling the sky with an orange glow. We talked, laughed and cried together. I wanted those moments to last forever. 

Then a month later, Peter died. 

The next two years, I barely got out of bed. My grief was too much to handle. I didn’t want to live. I shut out everyone and mourned the only way I knew how, in solitary confinement, my own hell.

Then one night I had a very lucid dream. I dreamt Peter and I were sitting on the bedrocks in Maui. 

“Rose, I need you to find me, follow your heart because I’m right here,” whispered Peter. I woke up in a pool of sweat, crying. The dream felt so real. I remembered every detail as though it just happened.

The next few days I tried to shrug off the dream but I just couldn’t. So, I did something wild and extremely out of character. I followed my dream. I hauled myself out of bed, packed my clothes and called an Uber. I was heading to Maui. 

So here I am in Maui, sitting next to the stranger, feeling foolish. I thought somehow my dreams would come true if I chase it fast enough. I don’t know what I was expecting but I feel the loneliness and grief creep back into me like a leech.

“Oh my dear, you must have faith. Maui has energies that allow you to reconnect with your true self. Solitude for quiet time fosters self growth and being alone in the spaces is when you really make the most out of it. The time of quiet solitude is when you can actually hear and listen to yourself. This sacred quiet is when the most profound things can come through,” the native says to me. 

I was processing what she said when without a word, the stranger left. Her speech left me wondering how I’m able to grow without Peter.

Then something mysterious happens. The sun is just about to disappear into a rolling wave when it emulates the most beautiful orange and pink hue I’ve ever seen. Then … it reverses direction and rises up! 

“What in the world?” I shriek for no one to hear. I stand up to look around the beach. No one looks disturbed by this bizarre sun event. How can the sun set only to immediately rise again? This spectacle is unnatural and why am I the only one to witness this? This is not really happening. I close my eyes and count to ten, open my eyes but the sun is still rising.

“Oh darling, isn’t the view beautiful? I knew you would find me,” an all too familiar voice whispers from behind. It couldn’t be Peter but I’d recognize that voice in a crowd of a million people. I slowly turn around and there he is, in front of me. I fainted.

Peter is still there when I wake up.

“How could this be?” I ask. He is holding me. I start to cry.

“Darling, we are finally back together but you might want to sit down because there’s something I need to tell you,” says Peter.

I look around my surroundings and we are no longer at the beach. Somehow we are in Muir Woods. 

‘I don’t understand,” I say.

“Rose, when you fainted, you hit your head on a sharp end of a rock and died. We have been given a second chance,” Peter explains.