Live Like You Were Dying

He opened his eyes to darkness.

He didn’t know what had awakened him. The sleep that he had just left behind had been relatively dreamless, and he couldn’t remember the last time that he had a nightmare – sometime when he was younger, he supposed. Besides, he wasn’t agitated or nervous at all. Just suddenly restless. He hadn’t wakened like this in the middle of the night for no real reason in recent memory. Strange, he thought.

A small sigh from the pillow next to him proved that she was still asleep. He turned to look at her in the minimal light, not needing it to know what she looked like. He’d seen her asleep many times, usually in the light of day as she caught a nap on his bed while he read or watched TV. Tonight she didn’t deviate from her normal sleep position: lying on her back with the sheet rumpled and pulled up to just below her breasts, one hand resting on her stomach with her fingers entangled in the sheet, the other arm tucked up and under her pillow, her head turned slightly towards him and resting against his shoulder. Her hair was coming undone from the ponytail elastic that held it back, and it fell across the pillow.

What’s going on in her head right now? He wondered if she was dreaming pretty things, benign things, if she was dreaming at all. Usually her repose didn’t last very long, but tonight she hadn’t awakened once that he knew of. For a moment he thought that perhaps she had woken him up; perhaps a tensing of her body or a quick jerk of her head had jolted him back to reality, ready to hold her and calm her down from the things that tortured her tired mind at night. But no. She was asleep, quiet and calm. Weird how the roles are almost completely reversed tonight, he thought. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, half-hoping that she’d wake up.

Her eyes fluttered, but didn’t open. She gave another little sigh, and then mumbled into his shoulder, “Love you, babe.”

He sat up a little more and brushed the loose hair from around her face. “Love you too, little one.”

Now her eyes opened and she looked up at him. “You need me?”

He tucked the hair behind her ear and stroked her cheek lightly, just once. He felt bad that he had woken her up, knowing how much she needed whatever sleep she could get. “It’s nothing, sweetie. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m awake now,” she said, turning over on her side to face him. She loosed her hair from the elastic, shook her head a few times, and then began to gather it back again. “Is something the matter?”

He shook his head. “No. At least, I don’t think so.”

She brought her hands around from behind her head and just watched him. If he wanted to talk, she wouldn’t have to prod him. He’d just start, and the conversation would go where it would. It was one of the many things that she loved about him, his ability to speak what it was that he was feeling – something that she still struggled with doing.

“I’m fine, sweetie,” he assured her, knowing the instant that he said it that it was indeed true. Whatever had awakened him earlier was no longer an issue, at least not to him. “Sleeping good?”

“I guess so,” she said.

“Dreaming good things?”

How easy would it be to just say yes? But something wouldn’t let her lie to him. “Not entirely,” she said. “But no nightmares,” she added, yawning.

“You looked like you were sleeping pretty well to me,” he said.

“Maybe,” she agreed. There was a silence for a moment while she debated whether or not to broach the subject, and then she spoke again. “I guess I was thinking about something.”

“What’s that, love?” he asked.

“Dying.”

“What about it?” His response wasn’t uncommon.

“I was just thinking about it, you know. How people are here one moment and gone the next, hardly a second from an infinitesimal standpoint.”

“Well, everyone dies, you realize that?”

“Of course,” she said. “That wasn’t really what I was thinking about.”

“Oh?”

She paused for a few moments and closed her eyes, and then opened them again, keeping them trained on the ceiling. “I was kind of thinking about how it is that I’m going to die.”

A quick feeling shot through him; gone as quickly as it had come and leaving no discernable feeling behind. He shrugged it off. “And how is that?”

“Well, I don’t really know,” she said. “I can only really take a guess.”

“And what is your guess?”

She turned over to face him. “You first.”

“Hmm,” he breathed. “You know how I feel about the whole thing. When it’s my time, it’s my time. I’m not scared.”

“I knew you’d say that,” she said, and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I had a dream the other night about it, I think.”

“Did you?”

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “It didn’t show how I died, just the funeral.”

“What?”

“I was looking at everyone in the church. Everyone was there, and everyone was in black. God, it looked so horrible. Make sure that everyone knows that – no wearing black at my funeral. I’ll be damned if everyone’s going to make their last peace with me wearing those kinds of clothes.”

“Duly noted,” he yawned. “What else happened?”

She paused for a moment. “You were there.”

That feeling passed through him again. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she said. Her voice dropped down an octave or two. “You were, um. You were telling a little girl that her Mommy lived with the angels now.”

He swallowed. “You’ve had that dream before, haven’t you?”

“Once or twice,” she said.

There was another silence, and then she spoke again. “I was thinking about something else.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m not scared to die anymore.”

“Good,” he said. “You shouldn’t be.”

She reached out and laced her hand into his. “What do you think the last thing you’ll hear is?”

He inhaled deeply and exhaled through his mouth. “Myself.”

“Yourself?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The last thing that I’ll think is that now I’ll find out if what I believe is really true.” He turned his head and looked at her. “What about you?”

She was quiet for a moment. “The last thing that I’ll think? ‘Thank you,’” she finally said.

He stroked her cheek with the hand that she wasn’t holding. “Why are you thinking about this now, babe? It could be thirty years from now, it could be tomorrow. For either of us. It’s inevitable, so why worry about it?”

“I’m not, really,” she said. “I was just thinking.” Another pause, and then she rolled over onto her stomach and looked into his eyes. “Just in case yours or my night is tonight, I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said with a kiss. “Now, c’mon. Sleep, love.”

She lay next to him, one arm across his stomach, her head lying on his chest. “If I should die before I wake…” he started softly, closing his eyes.

She finished the old childhood prayer from habit. “I pray the Lord my soul to take.” She gave a small, sleepy sigh. “Some kinda pillow talk we’ve got going, isn’t it?”

He laughed quietly and stroked her hair. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

She listened to the rhythm of his breath for a few moments, aware of her head moving up and down in time with his breathing. She brought her free hand up and placed it on the other side of his chest.

“I can hear your heart. I believe you’ve got some life left in you yet.”