I woke up this morning about 4:30 with wet, puffy eyes acutely aware of the dull ache that has taken up permanent residence in my chest.  I am vaguely conscious of its presence all the time, but I really notice it when everything is quiet.  I raised the blind and stared out the window into the street.  Without thinking,  I reached for her wedding ring and pushed it up as far as it would go on my middle finger before I started twisting it around with my thumb; forcing it around the bulged skin over and over.  Her fingers were so much smaller than mine.  She had a brown spot above her ring finger about half way up her hand that she had checked every year for signs of cancer.  Ironic.  I often wonder how long it was alive in her body, mercilessly devouring little parts of her until the day it finally won.  

I was in the shower when she died.  Why did I pick that moment to leave?  I had been with her in the same room watching her take every breath for the entire night.  I came out of the bathroom to find my father staring at her body with tears falling effortlessly from his eyes; his face a perfect stone sculpture.  He didn't need to speak.  I came in the room and sat on the floor beside her bed and held her hand.  I knew she wasn't there any longer but it was the only thing I could think to do. Her mouth was open and her tongue had started to turn white along with her lips and fingers. There was a stillness about her that made her barely recognizable.  That image haunts me.  I stared at her chest wanting so badly to see it rise with breath for just one more minute"¦long enough to tell her I loved her one more time.  You always want one more time"¦as if that particular time something magic will happen and it will feel like enough and you will feel ready to let go.  Instead, the last breath sort-of hung in the room with an unsettling pause.  Six weeks later it is still hanging there.  I scream at myself sometimes in the car or when I'm sure no one will hear me, "She's not coming back!" over and over again to try and force it to sink in, but I can't.