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The Orchid
by Kelly Athena Richards
"Ill be better by the time the orchid blooms,"
he said with his head held high
and a small smile on his lips.
And I believed him.
He was young
but he weakened and grew frail
as he lay in the hospital room
where dripping tubes and blinking machines
connected a man to threads of hope.
Like the slender stem of an orchid
waiting for its bloom,
this loving man with a rare disease
was waiting to resume his bright unfurling life.
He had tended the orchid when it was weak,
watered and nourished it, propped it up,
and replanted it from a small container
into a bigger blue vase
in the living room.
It was a rare, exotic variety,
its bud bulging with its upcoming flower.
"It will be so beautiful,
he said in a soft, dry voice,
staring at a vision in his head
of the delicate bright bloom.
But his eyes closed
and his kind face looked blank.
His breaths were farther and farther apart,
slowing down to a different beat,
to an almost imperceptible rhythm,
until there was a pause that never ended.
I held his hand in mine as it went still.
The blinking machines went bare.
The dripping tubes were dry.
Nothing could repair his body.
It was done.
He was leaving.
He had outgrown his container too.
I felt a squeezing in everywhere inside me,
then I stood like a numb statue, not believing.
Dazed, I stumbled into the parking lot,
clicked my key into the steering wheel,
and drove home silently,
unaware of the trees and cars
and people teeming with life around me--
eating and talking and laughing
as though nothing had happened.
I arrived home
to our home
alone.
I walked into the dark living room
where we had shared so much time
dreaming and planning for our future,
rejoicing in our prime,
and I could feel him throbbing inside my heart.
I felt around for the switch
and turned on the light
and there was the orchid in full radiant bloom,
blazing pink and red and glowing white.
Somehow I knew that from his view
he too saw the orchid bloom
in the blue vase in the living room.
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