"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them."
-Ian L. Fleming
When your soul is so deeply entwined with another's, their absence leaves you feeling incomplete. This one that you gave all of your self, with no expectation for them to return any of it. The one that sends a shiver down your spine, then warms you with their heart. The one that makes your heart speed up, and your mind slow down until only thoughts of that single moment are within. This person knows your every movement, your every word. Can predict what you will feel, think and say. They will know when something is wrong, even if you don't. This one that would come hundreds of miles just to be held in your arms. The one that walked three miles in the rain just to say their farewells to the one that they love. The one that held your face in their hands as they cried, saying "Don't worry, everything will be okay", though their tear-streaked face and beautiful blue eyes told you that they'd miss you more than they had ever missed before. The one that told you they loved you over and over again before they turned to walk away, simply because they felt a need to imprint that fact in your mind. And because they love the way it sounds when you respond "I love you too". And as they walked away, you watched them. Because you love the way they walk, the way they smile. Even the way they trip over things and hurt themselves all of the time. You just love them, and you will miss them more than you ever have missed anyone or anything when they are not there. Because that is how love truly works.
------------------------- (October) -------------------------
The door of his old GMC pickup slams as he slowly walks up the path to the front porch of the house his grandfather built. He sees his wife in the window, this woman he fell in love with back in high school, and has done his best to provide for since. She’s wearing a sun dress as she always loved to, floral print with pink flowers on white. White on her skin, which is tan from the warm, sunny Summer they’d had this year. They both were slightly old-fashioned when it came to preference in style. As he walks in the door, she jumps into his arms. She beams, a smile that takes over all of her, and radiates throughout everyone that sees it. He kisses her before moving towards the counter and resting on an old wooden stool. “How was your day, baby?” he says. She replies that it was good, but that she wished he was still working at the high school with her. He’d recently taken a job elsewhere and no longer could take his lunch with her in her classroom, where she taught literature to a load of immature high school students. But she had such passion, and she worked her ass off to teach those kids something before they were thrust into a world that couldn’t give less of a shit what happened after school. But he now worked at the community college teaching music to people almost his age. He was twenty six, she was twenty four. They’d been married almost seven years now and had spent every moment they could of the last nine years together. They had no children yet, as they’d decided to wait another couple years and enjoy their twenties together. Times had been happy, times had been hard. They’d had to move away from most of their family to find a school they could both teach in, a place where he could follow his dreams and continue making the music that poured out of him, and she could ride barrels every weekend in the Summer.
They’d found this place, and they never knew it’d be so close to home for him. Well, close to his childhood home. He’d practically grown up in this house, as had his mother and grandmother. The horseshoe his mother had kept for good luck still hung on the wall in the spare room downstairs. He returns from his thoughts and tells her “I miss you too honey, I miss you too” and then grabs his keys, takes her hand and says “C’mon darling, we’re going out.”
It’s raining now, as it always tends to do here, and the beating of the storm on the steel roof of the truck makes a sweet sound. They’re almost silent as he pulls out of the driveway, the radio off. Alone with their thoughts. Holding hands they drive slowly to a diner a few miles away in a neighboring town. He orders a steak, mashed potatoes piled high, and a side plate with Caesar as well. She scoots in close as they share their meal, happy to be together after the long day. They’ve both missed passing each other by in the halls, and spending lunch together in each others’ classrooms. They’d both missed each others’ presence throughout each day, and the closeness in physical proximity that had come with working in the same building. They’d both missed each other.
------------------------- (October) -------------------------
He awakes with her in his arms. It had been a long night. After dinner they had come home to an empty house, quiet and still. They’d sat up talking a little longer. He’d played her a new song he had been working on. Just him, her, and an acoustic guitar. She’d mouthed the words along as he’d sung to her. After that they’d gone off to bed. They’d made a night of their love, then fallen softly to sleep in one another’s arms. He awoke at five thirty to find her still fast asleep within his grasp. He kisses her forehead and tells her she needs to wake up, then crawls out of their warm bed, pulls on yesterday’s jeans and goes down the hall to make coffee. He reads the paper while he waits. Stocks are down again and business has gone to shit. Another budget cut’s on the way and music programs have been in danger at the required levels of school for years. Dropping the paper back on the counter, he carries both his own coffee and a cup for his wife back to their room. She is still wrapped up in bed, stubborn and tired. He sits on the edge of their bed and brushes her hair out of her face, waking her up again with another kiss and the aroma of her coffee; diluted by the cream and sugar she always has to have in hers. She opens her eyes and smiles. It’s the same every day. She refuses to wake up until he is sitting there with a cup of coffee making sure she doesn’t fall back to sleep. It’s always been this way. Even before they lived together he spent his mornings simultaneously readying himself and speaking loudly into the phone to keep her awake. She’s always been stubborn in nature, but it’s something he loves about her. She eventually arises and sits on the edge of their bed next to him. Drinking her coffee and attempting to fully wake up. He ambles off to their bathroom, in need of a warm thinking shower.
------------------------- (October) -------------------------
He pulls on his Levis and tucks in his shirt. Buckles his belt and ties his shoes. When he walks out of their closet she’s standing there pulling on her dress. Today it’s the blue one with the diamonds he always believed were polka dots. He marvels at how lovely she always looks as he ties the back for her. They go to the kitchen and begin their daily breakfast routine. He makes the eggs, her the pancakes. He throws in some toast and she fries hash browns. He pours another cup of coffee for each of them and sets them on the table, then returns to where she is finishing with the hash browns. He wraps his arms around her from behind, kissing her cheek and embracing her. She finishes and they separate, heading to the table. She piles three pancakes on his plate, misshapen the way she’s always made them. It gives them character and what they lack in geometrical perfection they more than make up for in taste. They each take their food and eat as they discuss their lesson plans for each of their separate classes today. She will be showing a movie version of the novel her class has just finished, and he will be showing a movie on blues during the Great Depression. They both have slow days ahead of them, and look forward to coming home later.
He has a gig tonight, and she will come to see him play. She always does, always has. She stands there with that twinkle of tears in her eyes and the most radiant smile you could ever imagine upon her face. She wears his jacket, as he gets too hot while on stage, and she gets too cold. This happens every time. Every time she kisses him and tells him that he will do wonderfully, “you always play amazing” she says. He plays and waits to walk off of the stage and pull her back into his arms. That feeling is the reason he still plays. That feeling of her in his arms after he goes up on stage and pours out all of his thoughts and his feelings to her, just for her. She’s supported him in this since the day that they met, and even became his promoter after a time. She said he was too lazy when it came to promotion. But he always had a way of leaving that to the music, and she always had a way of wanting something more for him. She was the reason he’d gotten anywhere in music, and he was more than appreciative. He didn’t know how she did it, hours a night every few days when they were teenagers, just spreading word about him, telling everyone she could. She still handled much of his promotion, and she was the only one he trusted to work his merch table when he was on stage. She was amazing to say the least.
They got in the truck. He was going to drop her off at the high school before he headed to work. They turned on the radio, country as always. It was that song Tim McGraw did with his wife Faith Hill that they’d always loved to sing together. He sang softly along as she belted out the lyrics in that voice he’d always loved. She didn’t believe it, but she had a lovely voice. When she spoke, he felt as if all was right. When she sang, he felt as if he was witnessing something sacred. She was shy about singing. She always had been. But she’d gotten used to singing in front of him over the years, and he was more than happy about this.
------------------------- (November) -------------------------
He pulls into the parking lot at the college, and there are students everywhere. Driving is an extremely stressful thing in this parking lot, especially when his mind is still back at that high school, where she kissed him goodbye, they climbed out of the truck, and he walked her to her class. Students recognized him as they passed in the halls, and asked why he didn’t teach at the high school anymore. He could hardly tell them the reason. These were his aspiring musicians, his band students. How could he tell them that the schools were soon cutting funding for music programs? How could he tell them he had left the high school for job security? He simply said “Hello” and that he was in a hurry. He opened her classroom door for her and she stepped over the threshold ahead of him. The class was still empty, as there were forty or so more minutes until students would have to begin filing in to learn about writing a proper persuasive essay, something she had always excelled at. She was the most persuasive of women, and she usually had her way. They had said their goodbyes and kissed. He then left her classroom and showed himself out of the building. That building he’d taught in only a few short months before. Where he used to take his lunch in that very classroom with the woman he loves so much.
He continued to drive through the parking lot. One of the problems with teaching college students, was that he himself was so young. He still looked the part of a young man, barely more than a boy, in his jeans that left only a little air between himself and the denim. His plaid shirt, rolled up to his elbows, and his old vans sneakers, beat up from years of wear and tear helping his wife with her horses, or yard work. They covered his feet and that’s what mattered. He pulled into a parking spot and climbed out of the truck, her still on his mind. He grabbed his backpack and the lunch she’d packed him earlier. They took turns doing this each day. He walked across the quad and into his classroom, to find the usual pandemonium of someone at the piano, someone playing around with the xylophone. Each instrument had a few students that would take turns frequenting it before each class, and he could always guess the few people who would be standing around each. He stepped to the front of the class, and everything stopped. The piano bench was vacated and the mallets back in their place. He put in the video he planned to show, and sat at his desk.
When his work day was over, he’d packed his notebook and left over Tupperware into his backpack and walked back to his truck. He drove home alone, as there had been another early release day at the high school today, and his wife had ridden home with her friend, who lived just down the street from them.
------------------------- (November) -------------------------
He’d pulled into the driveway and walked to the door. She wasn’t there in the kitchen waiting for him. He walked through and down the hall to the living room, where he found her. She was in one of his flannels and some of his boxers. She looked excited, but a little more than slightly nervous. He could not explain the atmosphere he felt to himself. She looked up at him with a vulnerability that showed him every thought, patting the couch next to her, and gesturing him to sit down. He sat down on the couch and pulled her nearer to himself, asking what was up, and ‘how was her day’. She only looked at him, bracing herself with a nervous smile. She hesitated, the uttered “I’m pregnant” . He took her face in his hands and looked her in the eyes. “I love you so much. This is wonderful.” he said as he beamed at her. She then lost the nervous look about her and smiled one of her genuine smiles again. They were both happy about this. They were both scared to death, as they were living off of what they could, between two teaching salaries and the scattered pay from his music and her horses, but they were excited nonetheless. He took her more tightly into his arms and kissed her forehead, a feeling filling him to the brim. This feeling he’d had only once before, when they were teenagers. He was going to be a father. His mind was immediately racing with thoughts of their little gift from above, as was hers. They stayed like that for quite some time, and then talked late into the night about names and other preparations.
--------------------------- (May) ---------------------------
She laid in bed with his flannel unbuttoned, running her hands lightly around on top of her belly, which had swollen quite gracefully to accommodate the new life that was being built inside of her. She had miraculously gained no stretch marks, and hardly any weight at all besides in her breasts and of course the region in which their child was actually residing at the moment. It was eleven at night, and she was eating the spaghetti he had made her in bed while she watched the same movie again, just about the thousandth time. She could quote every line, and often did. She rubbed and talked to the baby as she did this, and he had done his best to keep quite when he stood by their door, watching his wife become a mother. Eventually he’d step all the way into the room and walk to their bed, cuddling up next to her and taking over the job of rubbing. He would talk to her, and speak to the baby. Sometimes he would kiss her tummy as well. She was seven and a half months pregnant and on maternity leave from work. He had cut back the number of classes he was teaching this quarter in order to be home to take care of her all but two or three hours out of the day, which she usually slept through anyway. She now lived in his flannels and his boxers, mostly because both items of clothing were quite comfortable and his boxers stretched to accommodate her newly round abdomen. She was such a beautiful pregnant woman. She was even quite pleasant to be around, and only occasionally became cranky with him. Even then, it was only from a lack of sleep due to their little bundle of joy’s incessant kicks, which kept him awake sometimes as well. But it was worth it to hold her in his arms. Kicking or not, he held her tight with her belly between them every single night, anticipating the birth of their child.
------------------------- (June) -------------------------
He awoke to her heavy breathing as she rolled onto her back. She was having contractions and in quite a bit of pain. School would have just been out if she had taught all year, and he was taking Summer quarter off. She wasn’t due for another week or so, but they decided it was time. They got into the pickup and headed to Highline Hospital just a few miles away. As they drove, she continued to breathe deeply and he kept looking over. Holding her hand tightly, he drove as fast as he could. They arrived and he helped her out of the car, careful to not let her stumble. He pulled her arm over his shoulder and they hurried as fast as she could move. When they walked into the waiting room, two nurses immediately hurried her onto a bed and wheeled her to the maternity ward. He followed quickly behind, thoughts racing through his head at higher speeds than ever before. When they arrived in the room, one of the nurses hurried out to find a doctor and the other told her to take deep breaths. He sat down in a chair beside the bed and took her left hand in his. Soon there were nurses running in and out of the room. One asked if she needed an epidural, another how far along she was. Yet another nurse came to bring her a hospital gown and he helped her change into it, and then lay back down on the bed. Soon the doctor came in and began to ask a series of questions that they both took turns answering. She was dilating fast and her water had broken sometime before she had changed. She continued to grip his hand as contraction after contraction came and went. Her feet were elevated into stirrups and a nurse soon began instructing her to push. Sweat poured off of her and she was in a lot of pain. He brushed her hair out of her face with his left hand and continued to reassure her that she was doing wonderfully, which she was.
After about half an hour of pushing and reassurance, there he was. Their son weighed eight pounds, two ounces and was just about the most beautiful thing either of them had seen. The doctor gave him the scissors and showed him where to cut the umbilical cord that had for so long connected mother and child, and been its only source of food. He cut it and the infant was laid in a small tub, cleaned, diapered. His reflexes were check and then he was wrapped in a blanket. The doctor smiled as he handed him to his mother for the first time. She smiled through all of the exhaustion and sweat that had taken over her face. Her husband sat beside her as a nurse asked what their newborn’s name was to be. “Kaden Ryan” he told her, and she left the room.
Once they were alone she fed Kaden for the first time. He watched her as she learned to be a mother, one step at a time. After she had finished, he took his son in his arms for the first time. Looking into his tiny eyes, he smiled and said “Hello”. He sat down in the chair beside her bed, and took her hand again. Together they marveled at this new life that they had created. Together they formed a bond with their child, one that would last forever. After an hour or so, family was allowed into the room. They had all arrived some time ago and had impatiently sat in the waiting room, asking every nurse when they could enter. First his brother was let in. He was seventeen and looked at the infant with wonder. After him, his mother joined them. They had been staying at his grandmother’s home ten minutes away, as they lived almost three hours South. After about twenty minutes they were ushered out of the room and her mother and father were allowed in. Her mother was exceptionally excited. She loved any reason to hold a baby, especially if it was her daughter’s. She had been telling him for years that she wanted grandchildren and joking that he better give them to her. Her father was quiet, but held Kaden with a gleam in his eyes. After they had spent some time alone, her sister was invited in. They hadn’t gotten along at times during childhood, but she was excited to meet her nephew. He looked at her with slight curiosity, as he had every visitor before. Soon the three of left the room, and they were again alone with their child. She held him again, smiling even more as she spoke to him. He just stared at her with his small, dark eyes and made small noises. Everything about him was small and new, and all they could do was fall in love with him.
After a while she fell asleep and he took Kaden. He looked down at this new addition to his family with love and so many questions. ‘How is it done?’, he asked himself. ‘How can something like this be created from scratch like it is?’ he wondered. These were questions he didn’t need an answer for. He was happy just to hold his son and know that it had happened, and that in his arms was the result. He soon became tired himself and decided to get some rest. He stood up with Kaden in his arms and moved to the bed. He softly moved his wife over closer to one side of the bed and laid on his back next to her. He gently pushed his arm under her and around to her other side. He held their infant in his other arm and laid in bed next to his wife. The bed was propped up at an angle, so their child was still supported held against his father’s chest and bicep. Beneath his father’s forearm he was safe. Kaden fell right to sleep, and soon after, his father followed suit. They were all exhausted after such a long night and morning. The curtains were thick and kept the midday light out of their room, a darkness that allowed them to all take the rest they needed.
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