Page 21 of Bound by Affliction
Not worse either. I just couldn’t settle my nerves with you. Strange because I know you better now than most people around me. It’s scary but great in the same sense. Your bike is amazing, and you are so taking me out for another ride soon. Being on the back and holding on to you was a freedom I’ve never experienced before. One that I could do over and over again until the end oftime.
My lips still tingle from you. I don’t know what I was expecting because my nerves were eating away at my thought processes, but when your lips touched mine… Oh lord, I sound like a goober again.Sorry.”
“When you ended on that,I may have crinkled the paper in my hand.” A small smile tips my lip at thememories.
Folding the letter up, I grasp her hand again, clutching it and willing her to wake up, but she doesn’t. That’s how I fall asleep, hoping that when I wake up I’ll see hereyes.
My hands move and I jolt awake, lifting my head to look at Leah. Her eyes are still closed, but her hand istwitching.
“Leah, can you hear me in there? I need you to come back to me, baby. I need to see those beautiful brown eyes of yours.” She doesn’t open them, but her body gives another twitch. Remnants of the tape used to hold in the breathing tube are still on her face. I try to wipe it away, but it doesn’t budge, so I make a mental note to get some alcohol wipes to removeit.
“My bike’s just waiting for you to get on the back again. I’m waiting for you to wrap those beautiful arms around me and press your chest into my back. We can take all the backroads and pick places to stay along the way. No destination in mind, just ridin’ and feelin’ carefree.” Her hand shifts again in mine. “Yeah, I know you want that. I dotoo.”
This is so different than when my mom was in here. My mom never got off the tube. Her body never twitched trying to come alive again. Her coloring was pale, nothing like Leah’s. It gives me hope that this will end differently. That this will not end up like my mother. I just hope that I’mright.
Loss is always hard on you. Sometimes worse than others, but the common denominator always is the hole the person left in your soul when they go. It’s a part they take with them and you never get back. You go on living, but there will always be a part of you missing. A part of you that will grieve for as long as you live. That is what it is with my mom. Forgetting isn’t an option. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I remember the exact way she looked in that hospitalbed.
The exact way that the machines beeped to keep her alive. The smell in the air never leaves either. Each day that passes, those memories remain. It never gets easier. The only thing you have is hope. It’s all you can grasp onto, and I’m giving all of mine to the woman lying in thebed.
