Destination Unknown(greatest love stories)

Destination Unknown

By

Mandi Gordon

Feb. 2006

Too many things were happening in the space of 24 hours. The doctors said it was big, most likely cancer, we have to get it out soon they said. I wasn't ready for a death sentence. I was over whelmed; I left the hospital in a fog. I had no destination, just away; away from specialists, away from needles and nurses.

I drove for hours before I even realized how far from home I was. Finding myself on a country lane on one of the most beautiful spring days I can remember, I turned onto a dirt road for reasons I couldn't have known.

The road was narrow and winding, both sides of it lined with cherry blossoms in full bloom. As the flowers floated down to me like angels on the breeze, I caught one in my out stretched hand. That's when I saw her. She was sitting in her garden surrounded by thousands of tulips, unaware of anything but the sunshine on her face.

Nothing but the rustle of the wind in the trees could be heard, as I slowly began to breathe for the first time that day. Just then she looked around as if she was being watched. My first instinct was to look away and keep driving. There was nothing here for me, nothing but a doctor's diagnosis.

But then a voice deeper than doubt pushed up from my soul and said "What if? What if there is something here for me?" With nothing left to loose, I stopped the car and walked toward my future.

She smiled when she saw me coming. She might tell it differently, but I saw a smile. Her eyes caught me before anything else; big and round, deep brown with flecks of amber. I could have died right then. If you would ask me to recount what I said to her that day, I couldn't. She consumed me, brought me to life, made me believe that everything would be ok; with out ever seeing her before that moment; I knew she would save me.

It didn't take me long to convince her to spend some time with me. We became inseparable, spending hours together doing things that we all put off. I wasn't going to waste a minute.  I discovered the joy of just walking. Watching the warm spring breeze blow through her hair, reminded me of all the simple pleasures we ignore. Nothing we saw on our walks was more beautiful than her.

The first few weeks were a dream. But then reality was pulling me back to the hospital. I told her she didn't need to be there for me, she barely knew me really; she didn't need to comfort me. She kissed my face and never said a word. She was there for it all. The surgery that took body parts, the sickness that follows chemo therapy, the radiation that took my hair. She never winced when she saw me, never made me feel un-human.

The following winter, late in the night, I asked her to lay down with me. She never questioned what I needed, always gave freely of herself. She snuggled up to me and we lay together watching the snow slowly falling, the moon bathing us in her love. I didn't want to leave her, there was so much more I wanted to do, but I knew it was time. She tilted her head and looked up at me with those big, brown, puppy dog eyes, and I died.

586 words