Get Well Soon

It was a $3.25 card, the price did nothing to indicate the weight that one card held.  It hung limp in her hand. She did not know what to do with it.  She had purchased it before she had over heard that dreadful conversation. Now heart pounding she held out the card which he accepted. He pulled it out from the envelope and saw that it was a get well soon card. Forcing a smile he now understood the position that he had put himself in; here on his death bed his best friend was giving him a get well soon card.

  He did not know that she had learned the truth mere moments ago. His illness was a death sentence, a fact he had decided to keep hidden from those around him. Only his mother and his wife knew the truth, the others were lucky he reasoned. He felt that he was protecting them.

 "You know I've never understood these things before," she said, "it's as if people believe that by handing someone a piece of paper it will make everything normal again. I always hated the very idea of it but now here I am hiding behind one. I thought that it would be like saying; hi sorry you're ill but I can't help and even now in what may be your last moments on earth I would rather give you some store-brought, pre-fabricated emotions than my own.

  "It's easier of course, easier not to say how you feel. Anything is easier than dealing with eminent death. Perhaps it's selfish too...selfish not to bare it all out into the open. If it were you wouldn't you accept that awful risk of rejection to settle things?"

  He looked away from her to the picture of his wife that stood on his bedside table. She was a beautiful woman. She had the form of an angel and the soul to match. Her smile seemed to radiate from out of the frame giving warmth to the entire room.

 "Maybe it's not your feelings you spare when you leave the monsters in the closet. Why dredge up unpleasant things and mar the little life a person has left," he said, his eyes were still fixed on the photo. "Why parade death in front of the dying when they should soon have their fill of it. It is horrible thing to do. It is just as horrible to use their last moments to unload all of your unresolved emotions because while you know that this person's death will be peaceful without your revelations you feel that the rest of your life won't be."

 "Is it so horrible to hear the truth?" she asked.

 "Only when that truth makes everything that came before it a lie. How can one die knowing that so much of their life was a lie?"

 "What if was already known, what if it's always been there like a barely audible whisper? To say it aloud would be..."

 "Useless," he said.

  He finally opened the card and examined it. A frowning puppy told him to 'ruff it out'. He smiled at this and asked, "Is there anything else you wanted to say?"

  There was nothing left to say. He did not need to tell her that he was dying. She didn't need to tell him that she loved him. He obviously already knew but more importantly he didn't want to know. He did not mind that it was there so long as it stayed out of sight and out of mind.

  "No," she said, "just...get well soon." She left knowing that it was over in so many ways.

THE END