Letter to Heaven

My Love,

I thought I would let you know how I'm doing some three months after your passing. I miss you more than ever. I try as you wanted, and as I promised, to move on with my life. It is more difficult than you can imagine. I sometimes wake in the middle of the night and think I see you laying next to me. In the low light I reach out to touch you and discover it is only the pillows that make up your side of the bed.

Trying to part with those things that belonged to you is the hardest. In the light of day I tackle it as any task I would do, then at night I cry, thinking I am erasing you. The guilt I feel is sometimes more than I can bear. I know you told me they are only things, but they were your things.

The photograph of you that use to make me laugh because of the goofy Mickey Mouse ears and the equally goofy face you made, now only makes me cry the moment I see it. It's the realization that I will never again be able to laugh at your antics. Without laughter there is no joy, and without joy, there is only sadness and despair.

I will continue to try and move on, but know this, I will never forget you, and I will never stop loving you for as long as I draw breath.

Yours, Moke

Facing the Devil

A Tribute to Nancy Aiello Williams

I have faced the devil in his many forms and have known fear.

He has wracked me with pain, but I endured.

I battled him with weapons old and new and bear the scars of our encounters.

His attempts to drag me down into the darkness were futile, for I had the strength of my faith.

Though I grew weary I fought on and gained strength from my friends.

In the end he overwhelmed me with his evil, and though my body lay broken, my spirit rose up and saved my soul.

I have faced you O’Evil one and I have named you…Cancer.

~Marvin Allan Williams

Skywalk

She strolls across the skywalk that connects the parking structure to the cancer center that has been keeping her alive for two years. She stops at midpoint, high above the street below, and takes a deep breath. The air is sweet and cool.

Right here, in this spot, she feels suspended between life and death. Behind her is the parking deck representing death, all concrete, hard and cold, the absence of light. In front of her the hospital teeming with people, all angels, working to give her life.

True, she has endured pain. The poking and prodding. Needles, lots of needles. Radiation, enough to make her wonder if she glows in the dark. Still, through the nausea and the headaches, she is here, suspended between life and death.

She fills her lungs with sweet air and feels the breeze caress her skin then moves forward, across the skywalk, toward life.