After I posted Ghosts, I had a few comments asking me… if I did get to see my husband again, what would I say to him?
The immediate response my head gives is “Nothing at all.”
I suppose it’s all about time. How much time would I have, if I saw him again? An hour, half an hour? A minute, day? Because there are so many things I’d like to say to him, so many things I’d like to ask… I guess I’d have to have my priorities.
Given an hour with him…. I’d ask all those things I want to know so badly. Why? What were you thinking? Did you plan this, try it before? Did you really think it would work that way? Was it me, was it my fault, something I did or didn’t do?
And I suppose, if time allowed, I’d want to know… did it hurt, dieing? Could he hear us in the ICU? What’s it like, for him now, in his After… if there is one at all?
Give me just minutes, and I’d talk… I’d tell him I’m OK, the kids are OK, we will be fine. I’m stronger than I thought. That I was so lucky to have him for as long as I did. All the things I said to him, already, when he was lieing, dieing, in a stark white hospital bed.
But I doubt it would work that way. If popular fiction tells us anything, it’s that contact with the AfterLife is fleeting at best.
So if I had just seconds, just a minute or two with my husband again… I doubt I’d say anything at all. Except to whisper I love you against his lips.
It’s not that I want to say anything. I just want to feel the size of him, the strength of him again. The way he held me as if I were made of some fine porcelain that might break if he weren’t gentle. The way he kissed me as if I were precious. I just want to hold him again, just for second. And whisper that I love him, always have, always will. And hear him whisper it back, the softness of his lips and the rough prickle of stubble brushing my cheek as he does so.
It’s not a burning anger, a raging, screaming desire to see him.
It’s not even a desperate want of answers.
It’s just a want, an aching hole, left by the physical presence of my soul mate. It feels like I’m missing a limb.