Dear Husband

Remember when you promised me our last dance?

We were dressed in Tee-shirts and oversized joggers because we didn't want it to be formal. The skies
laced with the stars almost as shiny as our daughter's overly bedazzled gowns. It was our fifth anniversary which you had announced almost at first light because I dared you to forget years ago.

"Take outs !" I had screamed that night and you said I was free to be lazy for the night . We sang all the songs I love even though you mumbled the words. We never did choose a song for us, our love song.

"Why should we pick just one song out of all  the beautiful melodies when they all make me think of you?" You said and I began to truly see you in all of them.

Oh! it felt magical dancing beneath the great black canopy, applauded by the never ending chirping crickets. "They love the entertainment " You teased when I wished for silence. We had shipped our daughter to your mother's, just to spend time alone.

It's funny how I wait out late at night after all these years to hear those same crickets chirp . How often I ask them if they are still entertained by us even though I'm left with memories and recount them with those silent grasses. Maybe they miss you like I do , I can never tell.

Your Tee- shirts don't smell like you , it doesn't matter how many bottles of your perfume I spray on them, there's is a dictinct smell of absence laced beneath the fabrics. Trust me years of doing that has taught me the hard way.

You told me that our last dance would be the same as our fifth anniversary with our walking sticks and wrinkly hands also on our anniversary. That you would touch my grey hair and still call it perfection, and my sagging skin a wonder, but you didn't home come again .

They said you were a hero and I can't help but wish you weren't. Is that too selfish? Does that make me evil?

"Your husband saved the young man,he dragged him away and was crushed by the moving vehicle"

"Oh such a nice young man,gone like that .He made sure he pushed the boy away!"

"Words ! Nothing but empty words that wouldn't bring you back into my arms"

Sometimes I try to take solace in the knowledge that the young man's parents are not the feeling this same loss that is eating me up inside but it isn't near enough.

Solace can't bring your voice back , It won't caress me when I'm lonely at night or reassure me with kisses when I'm sad.

Solace won't walk our daughter down the aisle tomorrow.

And so here I am out in our garden at night with the liquor in my glass which you so loathed ,asking questions that I can't answer and wishing you had kept your promise. The liquor is friendly you know ,it keeps me numb when I write endless letters to you.

My hairs are greying and my heart still aches ,my wrinkles bolder but I still wait in vain for our last dance. This is not a tit for tat but merely a little vice I indulged in to keep the tears at bay. We promised ourselves together forever but you failed first. Drinking is merely an afterdeal, so bottoms up my dear husband and Happy anniversary.

Your grieve ridden spouse.

©2021

Nwagbara Michelle Nwaonu