Forever Gone

“My love, my love” I said as I woke up. I dreamed about her again.

This time we were laying under the stars. It was a cool summer’s night, and I had worked long and hard in the hot sun all day. I had gone home and gotten my lady, my love and we laid underneath a blanket of a million stars. I’m not exactly sure where we were, though. Maybe her daddy’s land? Her mamaw’s backyard? I can’t seem to remember. Either way wherever we were was just plain beautiful. And I still remember how perfect she looked. Beautiful light brown hair, rosy cheeks, a gorgeous red dress on. How could life get any better than that? I had perhaps the most beautiful woman in the world laying next to me underneath some of God’s best creations.

Yet it was just a dream. I woke up suddenly to the realization that I was not in fact with the love of my life but that I was in a small, cramped bed in what looked like an insane asylum. An all-white room with a television on the wall and a desk with all my belongings on it beside me. I don’t know why I am here, and I don’t know how I got here. I just know that I do not like it here and I wish to be with my love once again. There seems to be nothing that I can do about it, though. So I must live with what I have and hope that my lady comes at some point. It feels like only yesterday I was talking with her, eating breakfast with her, and dancing in the kitchen to our favorite songs together. However, there does appear to be a bit of time in between that and now that I can’t quite grasp. Where did all that time go? What did I do during that time? What did my lady do during that time? Oh, how I wish I knew.

“Good morning Mr. Hawthorne,” I heard a lady’s voice say. It scared me as I had not seen anyone enter the room. I looked beside me and there was a young lady with a tray of food in her hands sitting it on a table connected to my bed. It was not my love.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just bringing you breakfast,” the lady said.

“Thank you, but I’m not that hungry,” I replied.

Opening up a bottle of medicine the lady replied, “But Mr. Hawthorne, you haven’t eaten in days. You need to take your medicine anyways.”

Had I really not eaten in days? It hadn’t felt like days. Like I said, it was just like yesterday that me and my love were eating breakfast together. But if the lady said that I hadn’t eaten in a while, I guess I should try to eat something.

The lady took one of the pills out of the bottle and grabbed my cup of water. “Put this pill in your mouth and drink some water to swallow it. Don’t chew the pill,” she instructed me. I did as she said and swallowed the pill with some water.

“Good. Now here is some sausage,” she started as she pointed to my tray. “And some scrambled eggs, and a biscuit. Try to eat as much as you can Mr. Hawthorne. I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you.”

I wasn’t hungry, but I tried to do as she said. I ate a piece of sausage and a bite of the scrambled eggs and couldn’t bring myself to eat anymore. I was still just wondering about my love. Where could she have gone? Why did she leave me alone? Everytime I thought about her it made me crave her touch more and more. It made me want her to be here so much. I tried not to think about her but what else was there to think about?

I remember a time when me and my love weren’t alone. We had just gotten married and moved into our big home. We both had worked so hard to buy that home. The hours and hours of work we put in made it that much more worth it. For days and weeks my love and I would come home straight from work just to spend time with each other. Cleaning the house together, singing our favorite songs and dancing all around the house together. It was pure bliss. It was simple, but it was enough for both of us.

We would tell each other our secrets. What we wished for in life. I would talk about how I wanted three children and she would talk about how she wanted five. I would tell her things that nobody else knew about me, and she accepted me with open arms. She would tell me things that she dared not to tell anyone else and I accepted her with open arms. She completed me, and I completed her. It really was like God made us for each other. My life was perfect. Perfect.

Those days have passed however. I am now stuck in this God-forsaken place. The television is on but I’m not watching it. I hear all the beeps of a regular hospital. I stay in this bed twenty-four hours a day, only getting up when I need to shower or use the restroom. I don’t know anybody here! They are all strangers to me. Do they even care about me? Do they know where my love is? Would they tell me even if they knew?

While I was contemplating these things, two people walked in. A man and a woman, both older and nicely dressed. They smiled and said hello to me as they walked to my bed.

“Hey dad!” the older man said. Dad? I didn’t recognize this man. “It’s me, Eric. Your son!” he continued. Eric was the name of my son but my son wasn’t as old as this man is.

“And it’s me, Eve, your daughter!” the woman said. Once again, my daughter’s name was Eve but this woman looked nothing like her. How could they know my children’s names but not be them. This was weird.

“You all are not my children,” I said. I hoped they listened and would go away. They were beginning to scare me.

“Yes we are, don’t you remember?” the man claiming to be my son said. I wish I knew what he was talking about, but my son is just entering high school. And my daughter is just entering the fifth grade. How could these be my children when they look well past those ages?

“No, I don't,” I replied. They just looked at each other with a hint of sadness in their eyes. The man was holding something. A small piece of paper, it was folded.

“I brought you something,” the man started. He tore the piece of paper right down the fold and placed half of it in his pocket. He handed me the other half. It was a picture of my love! Oh, how I had longed to even see a photo of her! This was amazing!

“It’s my love!” I exclaimed. The man and the woman chuckled as I looked at the paper. This was my love exactly as I had remembered. Her hair, the clothes, everything. These people may have been strange, but they sure blessed me by giving me this paper.

“It’s mom,” the woman said. “Do you remember her?”

“Do I remember her,” I started. “I think about her all the time. This is my love. The love of my life.”

The woman and the man both broke down crying. They were teary eyed when they gave me the paper but this was full blown bawling. The woman gave me a hug and told me she loved me, and the man did the same.

“We have to go now, we will see you later,” the man said.

“Wait,” I started. “Can I see my love? Do you know where she is?”

The man looked at me and through tears he said, “You’ll see her one day. I promise.”

The man and the woman left. What a strange interaction. These people claiming to be my children come in, all nicely dressed, hand me a picture of my love, and start to cry. I hope he’s right. I hope I get to see my love one day. That would be the greatest moment.

After the man and the woman left, two more people came into my room. Two women, one of them being the one that gave me my food earlier, I believe. There was a problem between the two women. I could tell as one had an irritated tone and the other was obviously trying not to make the other one mad.

“You were supposed to check his blood pressure, you know it can get pretty high,” the irritated woman said.

“Well, I thought I would check it after he-” the other started.

“No, you’re supposed to check it every morning, even before he eats,” the irritated woman interrupted.

She placed a blood pressure cuff around my arm that I did not like and I struggled with her to get it off. She tried and tried and eventually got it on me, even though I didn’t like it. She said it was for my own good. I hope it was.

“These Alzheimer’s patients I’m tellin’ ya,” the irritated woman said under her breath.

“Be careful, you don’t want to insult him,” the other said.

“He probably can’t understand me anyways, what’s it matter?”

The other woman looked sad and a little frustrated herself. I wasn’t insulted a bit, but I did wonder why they said I had Alzheimer’s. Sure, my memory was a little blurry at points, but I felt that I had a good enough head on my shoulders.

“What’s this?” The irritated woman said, grabbing the picture of my love from me.

“Oh, his children were just in here visiting him,” the other nurse said. “That’s his wife.”

“You know, this looks like one of those ‘In Memory’ cards you would get at a funer-”

“Shhh!” The other nurse interrupted the irritated nurse. The irritated nurse somberly looked down at the card and placed it back in my hand.

“You’re blood pressure is good, Mr. Hawthorne” the irritated nurse said, not so irritated anymore. She took the blood pressure cuff off, giving me relief. She looked at the other nurse. “Be sure to check his blood pressure every morning, please.” The other nurse shook her head.

The two nurses left the room and there I still was. Alone. Without my love. Only a picture to get me by. I looked at the picture again, slowly this time. I ran my eyes over every single detail. She was so young, so beautiful. How could she leave me alone? Would I ever see her again?