The love you take

"It's okay to let go."

You wouldn't think five words would require a lot of rehearsal. I kept saying them, and saying them, and saying them, and never once did I sound like I knew what I was talking about.

The night nurse let me in and directed me to the sign-in sheets. Even the ones with a lot of names on them seemed awfully empty.

He was sleeping, or trying to; the machine was running full tilt trying to keep up with the demand for oxygen by two long-since-worn-out lungs. And he was small, barely the size of a ten-year-old boy, hardly the Superman who loomed over us when I was a ten-year-old boy. The cycle, I thought, is nearly complete; were there a scepter, it would now pass to me. And, dear Lord, what would I ever want with a scepter?

I thought of his wife. She is my age: fifty-three. She has spent half of those years, half of her life, at his side. She has been preparing for this moment for many months now. Her voice is soft, measured, deliberate. Are there screams inside of her, waiting to take her by surprise, to knock her down while she tries to stand? I do not know. It is not for me to ask.

I couldn't bring myself to wake him: what if the sudden appearance of a large, dark figure in the room beside him should be the last thing he would ever see? No. Better this way. Let him rest. He's fought more battles than any of us ever dreamed of, in this, his eightieth year; better that he should just slip away, away from this world, into the peace that lies beyond. I bowed my head, then looked off into the distance for a moment.

"It's okay to let go," I said, and I realized that I wasn't saying it to him at all.