“i had it all once”, her frail body let out a few soft words, “i had it all.” i remember the first day i met her pacing up and down the plain white halls, her head always held down, never looking up from her small feet. “there was a hot summer, followed by a warm fall, the coldest winter…there was fire and there was ice, there was wind and there was rain, i cried and i laughed and i held it all right in the palm of my hands. i was a woman, a well respected woman, that didnt happen much where i was from.” her pale face lit up at the cheeks, her eyes glistened as the next part of the story was comin, i’d heard it a thousand times before but i wouldn’t dare interrupt her…the doctors say she didn’t remember, i think she just wanted to hear it again

“he was standing there in a group of gentlemen, the kinda boys your mama told you to stay away from, holding a smoke in his left hand, exhalin just as i was walkin by…he had enough decency to turn his head before he spoke to me, enough class to take my glove off before he gripped my hand. his name was paul, i’d heard of him before, it was nice placin a name with the face and it sure did match up…tall, handsome, mysterious. i knew he’d change my life the moment i saw him, i just knew it” i smiled as she took a drink, clearin her throat, preparin for part two. “he drove me around town…he listened to music i didn’t understand and sometimes forgot to open my door, the other gentlemen looked at him like he was crazy, sometimes i think he felt it too…i know i did, the crazy i could handle, but life without him, not so much. the summer turned to fall, into winter and into spring, and year after year the seasons got warmer, year after year the colors got brighter, year after year he kept on stealin my heart, and i kept on lettin him.”

Mary the doctor will see you now. Her eyes dulled down as she lifted her body up from her chair, her head fell steadily as she grabbed her cain and walked back down that pale white hallway…as soon as the doctor saw her she’d come back, her story was never as full of life as it was before, and she never made it past the livin without him part…maybe because soon after that, she had to learn to.

“it was a dark night, the roads were curvy and he didn’t see that deer, no one coulda seen it…the doctors say it was his eyes, the woman who owned the farm said he wasn’t payin attention, our kids say it wasn’t his fault, or mine, but i don’t care what any of em have to say, that night he took away the most important part of my life, ive never been so scared to look at paul, never been so scared to touch his hand. I knew when he looked it me it’d be the last time, and it was.” the tears fell from her eyes and landed on her now, colorless cheeks. The room was filled with photographs, of her daughter, their two sons, and her love paul…out in the yard, on vacation, at the movies, everywhere they went they took pictures. I looked at her eyes, held out my hand and this time she took it, i can’t imagine the pain she was feelin’, or the life she once lived, but when her hand hit mine i felt the love she did for him, it was radiating off her…and at that moment i knew, if everyone could feel a love like that, the world would be a much happier place.