Terrible Things

Life is short and very fleeting. That’s something I’d always been told as a child. It’s something I’d always known as I started to get older. There was never enough time in a day to all the things you wanted to do or to see all the people you want to see. Before you know it, you’re in a care home watching the world pass you by as you just age. In a blink, your life has come to an end, and it’s time to move on to a different life.

Sometimes it doesn’t happen that way.

Sometimes the world is shit, and people die young.

It could be a result of war, or a careless driver, or an inconsiderate bastard who’d had far too much to drink. And then sometimes, it’s an illness. Sometimes you can cure an illness if you catch it fast enough, but other times, it’s already too late. Friends, family and lovers lose each other all the time because of an illness that started out as nothing, but then became something in the blink of an eye.

Don’t fall in love, because there’s too much to lose.

I sat beside his bed for hours, holding his hand and telling him stories; reminding him of all the times we’d had together. I hadn’t cried, at least not yet. I didn’t want him to see me like that, much like I didn’t want to see him like this. My strong, outgoing, careless best friend was now weak, fragile and paler than the snow on the ground outside. He’d lost so much weight, and now he could barely hold himself upright in his bed.

A soft beeping made sure that the room was never quiet for too long. It was the beeping that kept reminding me that he was still breathing, but he didn’t have long. There was nothing they could do. The Doctors told me they’d caught it too late, and the cancer had progressed far too viciously to reverse the damage.

Fucking cancer. It was one of the biggest life-ruining illnesses that someone could possibly get, and watching others around you going through a cancer loss is bad enough, but to experience it yourself? It’s on a whole other level.

I was smiling and laughing with him, but we both knew I wasn’t smiling eye-to-eye the way I usually would. He could see the despair in my eyes, and I could see the fear in his. He was afraid to die. I didn’t blame him. No one really knew what to expect when your body finally shut down for good. Was there an afterlife? Was there rebirth? Or was there darkness? There was never really a way to know until it happens to you.

I kept glancing out the window. I didn’t know what I was looking for, in all honesty. We were on the fifth floor of the hospital, and this is where we’d been for weeks now. For a while, it almost seemed like there was a chance he could survive. Almost. And then things took a turn for the worst, and the Doctor started to say that the kindest thing would be to let go.

So every day for the last couple of months, I’ve watched the love of my life get more unwell by the minute, and it’s been tearing my heart to shreds piece by piece. Nothing can ever prepare anyone for loss, natural deaths or otherwise.

And finally that day came. The day that the monitor gave that long, droning tone to signify its patients heart stopping.

As he breathed his last breath, there was the ghost of a smile on his lips, and a faint squeeze to my hand, and he was gone. Just like that.

And yet, I still couldn’t cry.

I hadn’t even told him the good news.



“Why didn’t you cry when daddy went to sleep, mommy?”

“Because, honey. Sometimes you don’t cry straight away because your heart isn’t ready to say goodbye,” I told my four-year-old. Someone in pre-school had mentioned that he didn’t have a father, so he’d come out when I’d gone to collect him asking me why. I’d felt my heart clench tightly, and with watery eyes, I’d promised to tell him at home.

“I wish I could’ve met him,” he commented, a frown on his lips.

“I wish you could’ve too, baby,” I said. “Promise me something, would you sweetheart?”

“Anything in the whole world, mommy!” He scrambled up onto my lap, brushing away a tear that I hadn’t even realised had fallen.

“Promise me that you’ll never fall in love, okay? There’s just far too much to lose.”

Look, baby. I’m finally crying for you.