In our early years together, when
Steph was healthy, we talked about death now and then — always very briefly, as
something we knew would eventually happen, but with the safety of knowing it
was probably a long ways off.
Sometimes it was me who took the
conversation there, and sometimes it was Steph. One of us would say, "Life
is a lot better with you in it, than it was without you. Thank you for
everything," or completely different words, but to that effect. The other
would respond with a similar romantic sentence or two, and usually that's where
we'd switch the topic to something else, but sometimes one or the other of us
would bring up death.
"When you're gone," one of
us would say, "I don't know how I could go on without you."
"You'll be brave and tough and
you'll go on," the other would reply. I'd reach for her hand, or she'd
reach for mine, squeeze it, smile and nod. The actual words varied, of course,
but the sentiment never did.
We had, of course, similar but
darker and more extended versions of that conversation after Stephanie started
to accumulate fatal diagnoses, but in my dream last night she was still
walking, so the conversation was quicker, more romantic and less painful.
We were in the kitchen of our Kansas
City apartment, where Steph was preparing a meatloaf and I was washing dishes.
In reality our kitchen was too tiny for both of us to be busy there at the same
time, but in my dream there was ample space for both of us.
"For so long, I always came
home and cooked dinner for one," she said while chopping celery. "Now
I cook for the man I love, share everything with him, tell him my troubles and
he really hears me, and — he's you."
"You know I feel the same way. Sharing
everything with you is what makes life worth living."
She'd finished cutting vegetables,
and now she was pouring flour into a measuring cup, and for ten or twenty
seconds she didn't say anything. Then, suddenly and strangely as dreams tend to
be, we were in Winstead's, the best fast-food burger joint in Kansas City, and
the reason Steph wasn't saying anything is that she was chewing a bite of her
hamburger. She swallowed and wiped her face with a napkin, and said, "You
know, I hate even thinking it, but someday one of us will be dead."
"I'd be ruined," I said.
"I'd never settle for being with anyone else, and I'd never want to go
back to being alone.
"Well, maybe you'll die
first," she said, "and I'll be the one who's ruined."
"Let's hope we go out together,"
I said, lifting my waxed paper cup of diet root beer as a toast. "Here's
to both of us getting run over by the same bus."
She lifted her cherry cola, nudged
it against my cup, and said, "Here's to both of us slipping on the ice,
double concussions, quick, painless, fatal, and together."
"Steph, I love you," I
said, and put my hand on top of hers on the table.
"I love you too," she
answered, "always have, always will." Then she squeezed my hand, and
the cat jumped onto my chest and woke me up, and I started typing the dream
before it could fade away.
Stephanie seems to visit when I need
her the most. It's wonderful to see her again, hear her voice, hold her hand,
and it's always awful — but oddly optimistic — when I awaken and realize it was
only a dream. I'm crying, sure, but we spent a little time together last night,
and that's the best thing that ever was, or ever could be.