It's 3am and I'm tossing and turning.
I don't know, since Laura left,
I haven't felt like doing much.
People call and want to go out,
but I don't seem to have the energy anymore.
Laura.
I can still here her voice,
with all the desperation and pain.
The cries for help that nobody heard.
Not even me.
What happened is still fresh in my mind.
It was a Saturday afternoon,
I had fallen asleep watching TV on the
couch.
The phone rang.
Being that I was half conscious at the time, I
decided to let the answering machine get it.
What I heard next startled me.
"We need to talk, something is wrong"
I ran to the phone to see what was going on
"What's wrong, hun?"
"It seems like nothing is going right.
I'm thousands in debt, I'm flunking
out of college and it seems like you just don't love me anymore."
"I'm very busy right now. You know that.
Fourty hours a week working and
trying to keep up with other things.
It's not that I don't love you.
I'm trying to be with you as much as possible."
"It doesn't seem that way. I just want to die"
I just want to die.
Those five words hit me like a ton of bricks.
I didn't know what to say.
Never dealt with someone suicidal before.
The best that I could do was to let her know I was there for her.
"Hun, we need to talk about this. I'm on my way over. Please don't try
anything."
Please God, don't let her hurt herself.
I grabbed my car keys and ran out the door.
On the way out, I grabbed a
rose
that I had cut from the garden earlier that morning.
When I arrived, Laura answered the door with tears streaming down her face.
I held her.
To let her know that I care and that I loved her.
When she was able to dry up the tears a bit,
I gave her the rose and she smiled.
It
seemed like the only sense of happiness
that she had seen in a long time.
We walked over to the couch and began to talk.
She explained about her
debt and her flunking out of college.
"I just wanted to be good.
I've tried so hard and I can't undertstand any
of this stuff.
My grades are failing and the bills are piling up.
Can't
work because I have to spend all my time in school and doing homework.
It's
like a vicious cycle that I'm never going to get out of."
I looked over at the table and saw a bottle of pills.
When I picked it up,
it was empty.
"Did you take these? The bottle was full yesterday"
Laura sat there in silence.
"Did you take these?!"
"Yes, but only about 15 or so" she said quietly.
"15?!" I screamed "WHY?!"
"They seemed to be the only way out.
There is no hope left in my life.
I
was willing to sacrafice what little happiness I had to get rid of all the
pain.
I just couldn't take it anymore."
Laura began to complain fo dizzyness and slumped over in my lap.
I laid her
down and put the pillow under her head.
I was hysterical when I called 911.
They seemed to calm me down just enough to get the information they needed.
After I hung up the phone, I ran back over to be beside her.
The woman I
loved.
Dying in my arms.
It seemed like an eternity before the ambulance came.
The paramedics came
charging through the door
and put Laura on a stretcher.
Just before they
put her in the ambulance,
I gave her the rose that I brought her earlier.
She just smile and closed her eyes.
I followed the ambulance to Portland Memorial Hospital.
Quickly, I ran up
to the desk and tried to catch my breath.
The nurse looked at me with
concern.
"My girlfriend was just brought in by an ambulance. Is there any word on
how she's doing??"
The nurse shuffled some papers and tried to get me some information.
Just
then, a doctor came around the corner.
"Are you with the lady that just came in from the ambulance?"
"Yes, I am"
"When she arrived, it was too late.
She was gone. I'm sorry"
I'm sorry.
Is that all he can say??
My girlfriend just died and all he can
say is I'm sorry?!
At her funeral, I placed a rose in her coffin.
A rose.
The only thing in
this world that seemed to make her smile.
"Placing a rose, the symbol of our love so dear,
In your hand so you'll forever hold it near"
I still think of her from time to time.
People say I shouldn't be blaming
myself for her death but I do.
There has to be more things that I could
have done,
things I could have said,
things like "I love you".
There are
still questions that go unanswered, even today. The most important one:
Why?
I still dream of her coming back and saying:
"Let's work this out, let's correct what's gone wrong between us. Our love
is so strong that nothing can ever separate us.
Not even death."