The sounds of subdued beeps and very small motors that worked the hospital equipment echoed in my ears as I held the warm small hand of the woman that had given me the strength to get out of bed each day since I graduated high school. Typically distinctive hospital smells pervaded the air as I gripped her fragile fingers, as tightly as I dared, not wanting her to go.
I hadn't slept for three days and nights, not since the accident.
She was unconscious now, too exhausted to even try to stay awake. I knew she wasn't in pain, as morphine was pumped into her at the maximum rate that she could take and still live.
The doctors told me that it wouldn't take long, but it was up to her and God now. They had done everything they could.
Knowing that she was about to pass, caused me to re-live the last conversation I had with her.
~~~
"Are you in pain?"
"Yes, but my pain is for you. Honey, please, there are thousands of women that will give you what I can't. Don't sell yourself short. I don't want to leave you without an offspring."
"Please, dear. I need you to pull through. I don't want to live without you. You're the woman that has made it possible to get over my childhood."
She shook her head saying, "No, it is your good nature that made that possible. You never let it control your decisions. And all I had to do was love you. And you made that so easy for me to do."
I couldn't ever imagine myself with another woman, but I appeased her by saying, "Honey, I will do as you asked. But if you pull through, we can still adopt."
Reassured by my promise that I would move on, as she wanted, my wife shut her eyes, and I knew it was for the last time.
~~~
The hospital equipment made the only sounds in the room for the next few hours.
They let me stay with her in the intensive care unit, even though the rules stated that two hours had to elapse between each ten-minute visit. The nurses had noticed that all I did was stay beside her, holding her hand, and providing her comfort with my touch. They had also noticed that when I was there, she didn't thrash around nearly as much and generally slept soundly.
So, I was allowed to stay. And I did. For hours. Never letting go of her hand.
I didn't drink anything, though they offered. But I didn't want to need to use the bathroom. I didn't eat either, as I would have had to go to the cafeteria. And that would have taken precious seconds away from the only woman I had ever loved.
All the while I held her hand, I could feel her very weak pulse throbbing, letting me know she was still with us. But I could tell that it was getting progressively weaker.
Finally, I laid my head against her arm and drifted off into a nightmarish slumber.
~~~
I woke with an alarm going off in the room and could no longer feel her pulse. Panicked, I sat up and let go of her hand, seemingly for the first time in days. It was then that I saw the heart monitor had nothing but a straight line across it.
"Code Blue in ICU. Code Blue in ICU," sounded over the pager. Nurses rushed into the room telling me that I had to leave. But I knew they weren't going to do anything. Anything at all. Cheryl had made me sign a 'Do not resuscitate order,' not wanting to be kept alive with machines.
I went to the ICU waiting room where several other people sat. People who were in a similar situation to me. I had met some of them before beginning my lengthy vigil in Cheryl's room and, as I finally emerged, they all looked at me with compassion.
"Was that Cheryl?" asked a woman who had obviously overheard the Code Blue page.
I nodded 'yes' and several people stood to provide assistance. But no one was able to catch me, as I fell straight to the floor, landing face down.
~~~
It has now been eighteen months since I felt my wife's life slip through my fingers. I went through the stages of grief. Or so I thought. Denial, Bargaining, Depression, and then finally, Acceptance.
But I forgot about. Anger, Rage, Fury. Call it what you will, they are just other names for the same thing.
I wasn't allowed to be angry growing up. Every time I was, my stepdad would beat it out of me. It was his approach to almost everything.
"You just try it ... and I will beat it right out of you", he would say. People thought he was joking. But trust me, he wasn't.
After the grieving process, I went back to work. I didn't really have to work at all, since the two-million-dollar payout from Cheryl's life insurance policy (that she insisted we have), and the $850,000 settlement from the trucking company whose driver had killed her, was more than enough to sustain me. But I needed to do something. Even if it was just work. So, I threw myself into my job, working at least seventy hours a week.
CHAPTER TWO:
Hailee Black drove up to her house after work. She was a little early. Normally she would get off work at five, but due to a pipe that had burst in the building she worked in, the 'powers that be' sent everyone home.
She smiled when she saw Sadie's car in the driveway. Hailee had always loved her older sister. They had been really close throughout their lives, even though Sadie made better grades and went on to college. Sadie earned her degree, found a good job and had made a promising start to her life. Meanwhile, Hailee had started life by a different path,
Hailee's husband, Allen Black, was almost four years older than she was. He had graduated college with financial support from his wife, who not only worked hard to keep her husband in college, but also managed to save enough money for the medical expenses that were coming with the birth of their first child.
She had lucked into a great job at Middendorf's, one of the nicer restaurants in the country, where she made good tips, and was able to support both her and her husband quite well, while Allen continued his college education.
