Piece #1

“…and when you reach the realms of heaven, I will meet you there. In mind and soul; our bodies will have long since turned to dust, but here in the portals of eternity there is more than enough time for you and me and catch up and carry on…”

         It was painfully obvious that William missed Ella, so much that even in the wind, sunlight and moonlight he felt her presence and heard her voice. The process of widowing was not new to William or any of his peers, after all he was 88 years old and that was the youngest out of most of his friends. Ella was older than him, even, finally passing on at 90. Because none of this was a new concept everyone assumed each other totally capable of handling the emotions tied to losing their better half. Little did anyone suspect that William, of all people thought to be the one possessing the most strength and character, was the one breaking down inside.
         Two months after Ella’s 89th birthday, her health began to fail. First came reccurring dizzy spells and fainting. Once, while at their daughter’s house in Wyoming, Ella stood up too fast and sank straight into the ground. Thankfully their son-in-law was nearby and called the paramedics to rush her straight to the hospital, where in a stark white room near the emergency center she was diagnosed with diabetes. Constant fainting turned into repetitious sugar level checking and monitoring in a matter of hours but despite all of this, William helped Ella with the insulin shots, her fear of needles and educating himself on what to do in the case of an emergency. This is how much she mattered to him and this is how much he cared for her.
         After Ella’s death William took full responsibility for taking care of funeral arrangements and aftercare. Each of their children attended the service out of respect for their mother but none of them were willing or able to step up and handle the business that the service included. One claimed she was too emotional at the time, another said he had too many financial issues with his own family and the third simply didn’t want to see his mother dead. She stood outside the doors and laughed in conversation with friends, he took his family on a vacation three weeks later and he walked up to the coffin. And during this, William carried on.
         Weeks, months, even a few years passed by and he still could not bring himself to give Ella’s clothes away. They held her form, her scent; the scent her remembered burying his face in when they kissed for the first time over 60 years ago. No matter how her body aged she still kept the curved hips he held onto while they danced back in high school. He missed her hips, he missed every inch of her and couldn’t see how to part with some of the only things that bared her resemblance and memory. This is how he wanted to remember her, as her in these pieces of clothing. He remembered her as who she was; comfort, care and downright beauty.
         It must be true what they say, that a lover who loses is best half is not predicted to live long after, because a year and a half after Ella left the earth, William ceased taking care of himself. His interest in the things he loved disintegrated; he was moved into a local senior center, his friends stopped visiting him, his unattended garden began to wilt and rot, and his children heard from him less and less. This was his plan to become a smaller and smaller problem to each of them, to let them have their own lives without burden of a man drifting off into his own mortality.
         He wished for release. The same release the young teenagers that lived in the homes around his own played around with in their bedrooms and bathrooms was the same one he thought about and asked to welcome.
         He wished to be with his Ella.
“…I wish you the best in life, and the quickest of deaths. I wish you to miss the pain I felt but to possess the bliss we are so capable of having now. Here we are in our Heaven, together in this birth of a life from death.”