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A Vision of Love

Ross Mayo Jr.

    Joel and I are fighting again. Our fights are not with our hands though. Instead, we fight with words, and sometimes those words sting. It all started three years ago when we lost our daughter, Kristen, to leukemia. Since then, our marriage and our souls are both darkened with emptiness. We’ve both been back and forth as to whether we should keep or end our marriage. We both know that there’s just nothing there anymore. What’s keeping me in the marriage is the fact that I still love him. What’s keeping him in is that I think he still loves me. I can see it in his eyes. We’re so much alike, yet the loss of our daughter has created a barrier from us making it work. Ever since we lost her, we’ve been stuck in time. No one is willing to make the first move towards reconciliation. There’s always been something that gets between us that we just can’t put aside. We’re both stubborn. We both have egos. We’re both equally strong willed. Right now, at this very moment, I cannot remember the last time Joel and I told each other I love you. There is a hope on my part that one day those three words will come from either of us, and I have to have the audacity to question myself and I hope there will never be a last I love you.
    Today, we attempt to make it work a final time by deciding to go to a restaurant that has special meaning to us. It’s where we had our first date, and because of its significance, it’s an attempt to bring us closer to where we were at the beginning of our relationship. We wanted to start over again, but instead we begin to fight about something that neither of us really knows what the fight is supposed to be about. The two of us make a scene and are thrown out of the restaurant. It was supposed to be a new beginning. Instead, it’s undoubtedly the beginning of the end.
    The fight continues in the car on our way back home. As we shout and scream our words just fly by each other. The time is about 9:30 at night. It’s raining and the road is very slick, but we’re more focused on hurting each other and getting the upper hand in the argument. Suddenly, we both notice that the signal light ahead of us has just turned red. It’s not enough time for Joel to stop. A truck hits the driver side of our car. After it stops flipping, I crawl out and go to the other side and see the blood coming from Joel’s motionless body. A bystander holds me back trying to go for my husband, as I distress over the thought of a life and future without him. It’s too late, though, when a first responder checks his pulse and finds none. All I can do now is stand on that roadside as the rain falls alongside my tears wishing for him to come back to me. My body and mind are both numb. I do not know what to do. I ask myself is this really happening. I am not at peace, but I am in pieces. Where is my place in this world without my daughter and husband? I am all alone now. Where do I go from here? What do I do? Just as I’ve come to believe that it’s truly the end, something that I can only describe as a peacefulness comes over me. There’s a voice that I recognize as that of my daughter that emerges in my mind. Before I can make sense of how this is possible, I can hear her voice in my head utter to me:
    “Just tell him how you feel.”
    I open my eyes to the morning sun beaming through the bedroom curtain onto my face. It’s almost a blinding light, but if it means what I think it means, then I welcome it. I’m lying on my bed, and my heart is beating faster and faster. I want to turn around and see my husband beside me. After I roll over, agony turns to relief as I see him sound asleep. His back is to me. I put my hand on it, and I can feel his warmth. He wakes up and turns around to face me. For the longest time I had no clue of what to say to bring us back together, but today I feel like a roadmap to do exactly that has opened itself up to me.
    “There’s so much I want to take back. There’s so much I want to redo,” I tell my husband.
    “What exactly are you trying to say?”
    “I’m trying to call out to you to put the pieces of our life back together. I want us to find our way back to each other, and I’m hoping you feel the same way.”
    “It’s not going to be as easy as that. There’s a lot that’s been said and happened between us. If we would have never lost our daughter, we would have never lost each other. To be honest, I can’t see myself with anyone else. It’s always been you, and if we’re going to do this, it’s going to be hard. We’ll need help, but I’m willing to meet you halfway there,” Joel replies.
    “We’ve pushed each other away for so long that it’s all that we know what to do. I know it’s going to be difficult, but I’ve already been through the hard part. We both know what it feels like to lose a child. I also know what it feels like losing you as well, and I never want to feel that way again. Call it a vision, but it’s one that opened my eyes and in doing so showed me a path I never want to go down. I’ll meet you halfway there as well,” I tell him.
    “You do realize that these are the most words either of us has spoken to each other in a long while.”
    “Not only do I realize that, but I also want to say that the most important words we can say to each other is I love you, which is exactly what I’m telling you now.”
    “I love you too, Rebecca.”
    As dawn has broken today, it’s offered more than just a new day in my life, but possibly the birth of a new chapter as well. We may have physically lost our daughter, but I know that she’s very much still with us in spirit. There’s been darkness since our daughter died, but there’s renewed hope that the new spark that she’s given me will lead us towards the light once more. I’ve had a vision of death and been given a second chance. I’ve also had a vision of love, and I know in my heart that it’s truly the beginning. I think it is safe to say there will never be a last I love you.

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