Do You Remember?

I’m lying in the grass, hands behind my head and my heart hurting with every beat. I can see the stars tonight, but all I notice is your face smiling down at me.

Do you remember that night? When we ran around the park, when we threw ourselves on the ground and watched the sun set, when you took my hand and held on like tomorrow wouldn’t come?

The stars that came out were beautiful, but not as beautiful as you. Yes, I know you lost all your hair, I know you lost your dreams; I know you lost so much weight, but you were beautiful all the same.

You looked so lonely when I passed your room that morning that I couldn’t keep pacing outside the door, I had to face my fears and go inside your hell.

White walls, beeping machines and the smell of fading hope hung stale in the room, reminding me of the times I had been there last. My mother survived breast cancer, but you were slipping away because of it and leukemia.

I snuck you out of the hospital later. Neither of us could handle the tension. I didn’t want to say something inconsiderate and you didn’t want to say anything at all. I drove you to our park, the one where the hill seems to go right up into heaven.

You took my hand like it would stop time, and for awhile, it did. We laid there in the grass, watching the sun set and the stars rise, the smell of summer still hanging in the air. When it got too cold, I held you in my arms, your shrinking frame fitting right against my body as I tried to keep you warm.

I saw a shooting star that night, and I only wished for one thing. I wished with all my heart, but I shouldn’t have, for my heart wasn’t mine to wish away.

My heart belonged to you the first time I laid eyes on you. Smart, beautiful and full of laughter and wit, strong enough to be the bouncer of the teen club we worked at, but still delicate enough to need reassurance in simple things. You weren’t superficial or materialistic; you preferred natural to a face full of make-up.

When you first found out you had cancer, you went to the hair salon, and donated your hair for the third time. It went from the middle of your back to above your chin, so short you would have hated it only days before. Instead, you walked out with the biggest smile on your face.

Do you remember that night at the park, when I told you I loved you? I still mean it, and will forever. Do you remember when I kissed you? It was right before your parents yelled at me for an hour straight for sneaking you out. Let me tell you, it was worth it. I would sit through an eternity of that if it meant I could hold you again.

Do you remember when I asked you to marry me? You laughed at first, believing it was a mean joke. You believed that nobody would want to marry you, and maybe you were right, but I wasn’t nobody. I became your fiancée that night.

I married you just a few weeks later, in the park, just you and me and the closest of family and friends.

I never told you what I wished for that night, and you never asked. I think you knew from the way I looked at you, and I think you were right.

Even though I lie next to your name etched in stone, when I look at the stars all I see is you.