Farewell sweet husband of mine,
Here I am, lying on the unmerciful deathbed of the hospital. I look around the icy-cold room and feel the muscles in my body jitter with apprehension of what awaits me before the ink is dry. I am writing to you, David, my endearing husband, to put into words my final goodbye. I quail at the crushing thought of leaving so incipiently when it seems like only yesterday we’d taken our sacred vows of oneness. I do not want to die. I like living. I have sometimes been wretchedly miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive, as your wife, besides you, in our own little world made up of you, me and our love, is a grand thing.
It is true–love knows not its own depth until the pinch of separation. We have written our brief, yet incredible story in the sands of time. Surely, you will remember the instants of joy we have shared and smile at them with lightness in your heart. Your eyes spoke to me, the first time we met, a secret that in life after life, in age after age, forever, we will dote on each other. Darling, I am going with fond memories of how we have made love in the gentle summer rain; in the shepherd’s heaven, over the flocculent sunlit green pastures; in the quiet lodge at Emerald Waters. I cherish the times we have spent chasing the moon on our long drives, when we kissed like euphoric teenagers or when you daintily drew me closer to you in your sleep in the wee hours of the morning. We promised we would live together. We would die together. I am sorry I am not keeping my words, for this evil disease has got the best of me. It pains me a hundredfold to be in isolation–not to see your face, not to close my eyes for one last moment in your arms. This would have mollified the regrets of my harsh untimely departure from this world. I miss you.
You will live on, Dav, after I am gone. You will live a full life and do everything we have ever dreamt of. You will fall in love once again with a kind woman; her love will hit you like a thunderbolt, and will pierce through your soul. She will make you laugh when life gets tough. You will make wonderful babies and watch them grow. Your budding business will soar to heights you would have never conjectured. You will be a happy man; and nothing in the City of God would bring me greater pleasure than to see you happy. Life will be worth living if you plant lovelier, the journey will continue without me. Should you feel lost, hesitant or weak; should you crave to swaddle in the snugness of my loving embrace, you will still find me at all the places where we sang and danced–in the chilling breeze of the mountains, in the ebb and flow of the gentle waves of the sea, deep in your heart. You have given me love. I hope to give you dreams of your beautiful tomorrow.
David, I leave behind lasting pleasant memories for you which you will treasure for the rest of your life. Thank you for being the best husband I could have possibly asked for. I have loved you yesterday, I love you today and I will love you for always. It’s just goodbye for a little while. Only a little while…
Your beloved wife,
Jasmine
*This letter is a humble tribute to all those devoted wives and girlfriends who have been fighting hard and for the most part alone, but have sadly lost the battle against the Coronavirus.
May their soul rest in eternal peace.
Are you actually on your death bed?? I hope not, of course… 😟
Hello my dear, I appreciate your thoughtful consideration. This is a fiction. I have mentioned below that I wrote this letter to pay homage to those wives or girlfriends who are critically affected by the Coronavirus. Please do not worry-The Little Mermaid is alive in sound health quarantining at home.
Please stay safe you too. I send Penguin much love and healing energy. Bless him. X
Thank you so much, I’m very glad to hear this <3 Take care and stay safe lovely x
Yes, I will do the maximum I can, act on what I know and keep faith. <3
Heck of a farewell scene.
Thank you so much for the great feedback.
Stay safe! <3
I’m confused on this post. 🤔
This is completely fictional writing John. I’m fine. I’m whole-souledly thankful for life today in the same way I feel on any other day.
Please keep safe. You are in my good thoughts. X
OK, thanks – sorry. 🤭
I hope this is not true. I hope you will survive. Sending love.
This letter exists only as a figment of my imagination, Andrea. I appreciate your concern.
Be safe!
This is a very beautiful and tender post. Extremely poignant. I hope you are able to stay safe, strong and healthy. Harlon
Thank you for the nice commentary on the letter, Harlon. I am good. I have just visited your blog. After reading your post titled ‘Who, When, Where, What & Why’ dated 31 March 2020, I am profoundly devastated to learn about your life’s journey. I do not have the right words to say at the moment but I wish I could give you a very big hug. I am sorry you had to go through so much, but you are a tough guy and a fighter and a survivor!
We take it for granted that a beautiful soul needs to be pure and innocent. Most often, it is not the case. Some people are pure and innocent because they choose to close their eyes on anything that goes against their core beliefs to keep living in a protected nest so that they don’t have to take a stand. A truly beautiful soul is one that has seen the worst of mankind and been through some terrible experiences themselves, have loved and had their heart broken, have hated and been hated but came out of it all without any bitterness. Harlon, you are a beautiful soul.
I choose to be here for you as a friend: wordlessly, patiently, genuinely and empathetically. I understand that opening up to someone is an extremely courageous act, one of the hardest too, but we all need it. We all need to be heard, every single one of us. We need to be able to pour our heart out to someone from time to time. We need to let someone know how heavy our heart feels. We need to stop hurting ourselves over things we think we shouldn’t be feeling or thinking about. We need to allow ourselves to breath. We need to realise that we most certainly aren’t and will never be the only ones.
Harlon, please do not ever give up on life. Keep growing through the challenges. You have the support of your blogger friends. I am with you. I will check on you. Give time time. Everything heals. Your body heals. Your heart heals. The mind heals. Wounds heal. Your soul repairs itself only if you learn to let go and trust the flow of energy of the Universe. This healing and reparation process is your growth. It is what you needed to flourish. Everything will be okay–slowly but surely.
Be safe! Love you X
A beautiful letter!
Thank you Peter.
Be safe! X
Urvashi, what an incredible and thoughtful vibe coming from your heart. As I have learned from your posts, this is what I expect from you as you love others. God’s grip to you as we navigate through this global crisis. Hugs from me. – Alan
Alan! How are you doing? Thank you for the lovely feedback. You are right-I love people because I love life.
Stay safe. We are in this together.
Hugs X
Yes, getting though it all. I am one of those high risk with the pre-conditions which leaves me being a big target for the virus. So, my doctors have made me commit to truly “staying in place”. But, it’s okay. All is temporary, even this crisis. I know Who holds tomorrow & I know Who holds my hand. Happy Easter, dear lady. Stay safe and well.
You do the best you can, with what you can, while you can. Que sera, sera.
Belated Easter wishes to you, Alan. Easter Bunny did not bring me chocolates but plenty of hope and love this year which I would like to share with you.
Be safe! X
Such a beautiful d’éducation… Stay safe dear
Thank you Adeline. Please take care you too. We will make it. X
A glorious tribute…. with an awesome finale….. well done….
Thank you very much, Ivor. Be safe! X
Intriguing post. Well-written, inspiring. Thanks for writing this and sharing it with us.
Thank you Chaplain Rainer Bantau, for reading and for providing an excellent feedback. Be safe! X
You’re welcome. Stay safe and healthy as well.
Thank you for bringing these thoughts to life. I have a friend whose father is in isolation after a stroke; not able to be comforted or helped by his wife and family during this time. He will mend, Lord willing fully; this time shall pass as well as all times before. I await Heaven where eternity will be sweet; imagine something greater than the coming together of man and wife here on Earth! The intimacy with our Savior and Father God will be so much deeper, more complete we’ll realize quickly why no one is married in Heaven!
I am in awe at this wonderful testimony so moving; I was so scared that it was you. Please take care and stay safe..
Thank you, Andrew. This is only a fabrication of my imagination.
Love and light X
Well said, young lady. You are a wonderful woman.
Wow, it sounds like you two had a special love and I’m happy you shared these thoughts with us. It helps to be reminded of our mortality and think about the joys in our lives, the people we have loved and those we still love. Thank you.
Urvashi, you’ve created a very loving goodbye letter to husbands in remembrance of all the wives who lost the battle with the coronavirus. At first I was so worried it was personal, then read it was a dedication. Phew. 🙏🏻 Please, stay safe & healthy. 📚 Christine
A very poignant dedication. I hope you’re well and healthy, yourself.
This is a very touching tribute. I hope from the note at the bottom that you aren’t facing this personally, but many are as you lovingly described.
The concept is excellent, and the writing is lovely and emotionally charged — to a point. From observation, with most illness, including Covid-19, death is accompanied with massive fatigue. Or pain and morphine which make thinking difficult. Humans deny death until each comes to terms with the inevitability of the event. A letter like this couldn’t be written until that acceptance has occurred.
The letter would take the writer hours with pauses — for naps, water, tears, breathing — which as a writer gives you the ability to squeeze more emotive content into a small space. If you work this, you can make it an order of magnitude more powerful. Evocatively, a prayer for the dying.
There are of course rare exceptions. Ulysses Grant wrote his massive autobiography knowing that he was dying from tongue cancer. The purpose of the book was to provide income for his wife after he was gone, but I doubt that he talked about death with her until it was finally upon him. He didn’t want to upset her, so he suffered quietly for well more than a year. The emotional content of silence.
Very touching. I also hope this isn’t from your deathbed, Mermaid.
So beautiful, deep, and thought-provoking😢
Eight years ago today my friend Jim died from brain cancer. I was filled with sorrow and gratitude on that day, and our nurse, Ida, and I sat by his bedside for a long while after Jim had died, talking of the gift he had been and the blessing of our friendship. I feel so fortunate that I was by his side, and my heart aches for people dying in hospitals now with no family or friends nearby.
It is a testament to your talent that you allow us to see feeling in words. As the emotions emerged the words transformed into the sense of feeling. I saw, I heard, I tasted…FEELING!
Such a delightful touching tribute- I long for such a love- yet we’re not all equally blessed and the things we want most seem to be most elusive- I have much more than I deserve and do my best to share what I have been so gracefully given . Such is the seemingly unjust selection of His will, alas all is indeed well
Such a touching tribute to a strong love relationship. Beautifully written. I trust you and your family are safe and healthy, Urvashi. May the Lord richly bless you.
I had a terrible moment where I thought this was non-fiction but then I realized it was a gorgeously written tribute to those who have been lost. Lovely:-)
Beautiful but sad. I just lost my cousin and my sister is in ICU, neither were/are allowed visitors because of Covid-19. That is sad as well. My cousin’s husband fought to bring her home to die peacefully and I’m grateful they let that happen. My sister has no mate, just her two boys and her siblings who all live far away. We would be there if they would let us. It’s a sad time, for sure. Thanks for creating a thoughtful moment.
This post made me emotional….and also I was shocked as it seemed to be true until I read the last line….