They said he died peacefully.

The night had washed over his hospital dorm, and he shut his weakened eyes to shield against the moonlight. They fluttered once or twice, then didn't open again.
He could have been dreaming.

When I first heard about it, I went to the bathroom and climbed into the bathtub. I started the water, then curled into a ball and pretended it was raining. I drew my legs against me the more the water grew cold.

I stayed in that position until night came, and soon midnight. By then, with the water still running, I stood in the tub and peered out the bathroom window. The outside world was stark white, thick with a still growing carpet of snow. Drops of water trickled down my blued eye-lids and crept into the crevices of my pale lips. I let my tears blend in with my play-pretend rain. The snow gave me memories I thought I had lost.

My dearest love,

It feels as if I have grown a thousand years in a single day. With all the medications I've been put on, and all this containment... It's almost as if I was imprisoned, punished for something I'd done wrong. My feelings for you deepen the further they keep me from you. I do not believe you could possibly imagine exactly how much I miss you...

Today was considered a bliss, but I found it a frightening experience. The new medications my doctor has put me on, I believe they are the key. Everything else I had taken never eliminated my psychosis completely, but this new drug, this new miracle, has ceased them completely. You've no idea what it is like to wake in the morning like this. I woke, frightened, my heart racing, and then found for the first time that I was in complete silence. I found that, for the first time in my life, that I was completely alone with not a thought running through my head but my own.

For such a brilliant improvement, they allowed me a few minutes outside. They unlocked the door and I walked outside in nothing but my scrubs, startled by the frigid temperatures of the world beyond my freedom. How strange it is... to come into a place in the summer time and walk once outside to find the snow. I looked up to watch the snowflakes brush passed my eyelashes, feeling as if I was born again. To feel something so beautiful on my skin and to see it with my two eyes, unscathed for once by psychosis, was a feeling I had never quite experienced before...

I wish I could have experienced it with you, my love.

Sincerely,
Your Aching-with-love Husband


I blinked and imagined the snowflakes touching my skin as the pellets of water struck at my face. I couldn't feel them.




At the funeral, I stared into his open casket, suddenly aware that I would never see the same color of his eyes again. I was almost furious with myself, imagining the last time I had seen them open. Why hadn't I drowned myself in those beautiful eyes? The rage quickly turned into serenity, as I thought of the way he passed away, his eyes closed as if he could have been sleeping.

I imagined how he entered the hospital, in hopes of leaving as a slightly different person. A happier person. The last thing I had expected was for the love of my life to pass away, and strangely, I felt not sadness or anger, but the tingling feeling of snowflakes on my skin. I looked into the casket once more, staring at the closed lids which I wanted so desperately to open up. I imagined him dreaming.