Standing inside the eerie hospital room, I could feel the thickness of the air clogging inside my ears, pounding on the eardrums. The fluorescent light bulbs buzzed incessantly above me. There were no windows inside this cubicle of a room, for vegetables do not need a view of the outside world. They cannot see the blue of the fall sky. They cannot hear the sound of the spring birds. They cannot feel the warmth of the summer sun.
Edward’s favorite time of day was dusk. Every Tuesday we would take a walk down to the town wharf where we’d sit upon a wooden bench, eating ice cream and watching the boats pass in and out of the harbor. We’d carefully read the boat names as they came and went. By sunset, whichever one of us found the most original would win. Edward always won. He had better eyes than anyone I had ever met. It’s funny how drastically things can change. How in one instant you can be holding the whole world in your hands and in the next, it can slip through your fingers like a few grains of salt.
Ever since Edward was forced into the state he resides in now, and has resided in for four months, sixteen days and twenty-two hours, I have not dared to take this walk alone. Those strolls always made me feel like I was seventeen again, the age I was when I first fell in love with Edward. For the past few months I have lost this skill for imagination. Reality once again creeps in as I touch the wrinkles that have sunk so comfortably into my face over the years.
I look down at the man who has become my entire universe. Grasping his lifeless hand, I miss him more than ever. I know that the time has come. The decision I’ve been contemplating for weeks now must be made. As the doctors explained, Edward has less than a one percent chance of recovery from this life-stealing coma. His blood pressure has dropped and his heartbeats have decreased. His body can’t even recall how to breathe without the help of technology. Though I’ve always been a firm believer of love, I have never known much about miracles. Despite the unexplainable medical recoveries I’ve viewed every few years on the news, I know in my heart, what Eddie would want. My husband believed in life and, as my eyes lingered sadly upon the machines pumping oxygen into his helpless body, I knew that this was not living. I closed my eyes as a single tear rolled gracefully down my cheek. I blushed, embarrassed that for a second I had waited for Edward to wipe it away.
After speaking my silent goodbyes, I whisper the truest words I had come to know. “I love you.” I kiss his left cheek, (it is still warm) and walk out of the room, knees weak and spirit broken. I nod to the doctor who will be removing the oxygen chord that is keeping Edward’s body intact. There is only one piece of knowledge that that keeps my steady footing; that I am not leaving Edward’s soul behind for it had left that limp body weeks ago. I know this now as I walk to my car. I smell it in the scent of the burning leaves, in the clouds of the blue sky, and in the bright stars of the clear night. It follows me everyday like a shadow in early evening. Edward’s soul is in the root of my heart, and it grows larger than life itself.