by Nilofer Ashraff

Created on: February 15, 2009

(more of a short story)

Holding on

He touched her side of the bed, her pillow, her blanket she had since she was a child. The blanket that she refused to wash and the fights they had because it was just unhygienic to use a blanket for so long and not wash it. He would secretly wash it on the day she wasn't at home, making sure it dried by the time she came back to him, so that that night she had something to cover her feet. She never could sleep without her feet being covered. He missed those fights he had with her.

He missed the conversations he had with her. He missed those late night conversations they had after they made love. She would talk on and on about Shakespeare, George Orwell, Jodi Picoult and the many, many authors that inspired her. Some nights he would talk about the things he liked, how music inspired him, how he liked music and writing. Sometimes their conversations were repeated, but he never got bored of them, never got bored of her voice talking. Never got bored of the smell of her hair. Never got bored of the fire in her eyes as she talked about how much she loved writing, or how much she loved a particular song that she had discovered.

Even though they were married for years, they kept writing in their journal to each other. He was now glad that they did that. Now that she was gone, he could just pick up a random journal and feel her with him again.

He touched the pillow and thought about her long hair. She had had many debates over cutting it, but she never could. When all her hair had fallen off, she had wanted to get a wig, but he said he did not need that. He kissed her every night and told her she was beautiful even without it. She would smile. God, he missed her smile. When she smiled, he felt the room light up. Her smile was the only thing that kept him going when he saw her in pain. She smiled whenever he was in her room even when he could see in her eyes that she was in pain.

Just few days ago he had held her in his arms and said. " Your smile lights up my life." She smiled at him and said "You light up my life."

When both of them knew she was going to die, she had planned a special list he had to promise her and wrote it in their journal. He reached over to the beside table and took the purple journal, flipped it to the page where the list was.

You have to pack all my clothes and give them away to charity. Don't keep them.You can keep my CDs if you want, but give away some of the ones you don't really like to my friends. Throw away photographs

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