not ready to hear this

 

the love of my life, my partner, my wife said to

me the other day, almost whimsically, ‘ya know,

‘papa’, i’m ok if i die sometime in the near future

from this Leukemia. i have accepted my end, i’m

not afraid to die’. i walked away and into another

room in our abode, closed the door and tears flowed

and flowed because i can’t believe that she doesn’t

realize i may not feel the same, that I’m not ok if

she departs from my side sooner rather than later

 

i’m almost ten years her elder and of course i have

had similar thoughts, no fear, about my passing but

that’s because i’m older than her and these thoughts

considered, of our departure from this existence, is

that i wish for us two growing ‘old’ together, holding

each other as we traverse onto our transcending

journey, so to hear her utter these words to me really

hurt my heart and my spirit is disheartened with

this on my mind

 

i cannot bear the thought of losing her presence,

looking at her in front of me, staring deeply and

lovingly into those beautiful powder blues, hearing

her voice, holding her, kissing her every morning,

every day and always in the evening before resting 

our eyes to sleep, telling her ‘i love you more than

any human on this earth’. i think she knows this

because it is what i say to her every day, three times

every day.

 

the thought of losing someone that your whole being

is intertwined, enmeshed with, is what makes life so

much more painful than just the burdens of all the

other mundane struggles of life.

 

‘do not disdain portrayals of love or feign affection,

receive with open arms and heart life’s every emanation,

for loves will falter and tend to fade away and the heart

will be scorned and cry from day to day, do not fold within

like the flower that sleeps at the end of its season but, like

a perennial, leave a little room to start again’.