Chapter Forty-Nine - When One of Us Goes First

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

When One of Us Goes First

WE ALWAYS KNEW this chapter would come.

We joked about it in the early years.
Me taking the stairs two at a time, you rolling your eyes and saying, “Keep doing that and you’re definitely going first.”

We laughed.
We didn’t mean it.
But we knew.

Because this kind of love?
The kind we built?
It stretches beyond the body.

When it happened, it was quiet.

Maybe a hospital room.
Maybe at home, soft light through the curtains.
Maybe holding hands. Maybe not.

But I knew.
Somewhere deep in the part of me that always belonged to you, I knew.

And even though it broke me in half, even though the silence was heavier than anything I'd ever carried, I didn’t crumble.

Because you weren’t gone.

You had become the space between everything.

You showed up in the music I couldn’t turn off.
In the coffee that still tasted like you made it.
In the way the sun fell on the porch chair you always curled up in.
In the way I still said, “Babe, come look at this,” before remembering I had to wait a little longer to show you.

I still talked to you.

Out loud sometimes.
In my head always.

I told you about the kids.
How they’re growing into everything we ever hoped.
How they still quote your weird phrases.
How they still reach for your love like it’s air.

I told you about the garden.
About the rain.
About the night I dreamed you sat next to me and said, "I’m not far. Just deeper now."

And when my time comes?

I won’t be afraid.
Because I’ve already known heaven.

It was dancing in the kitchen.
It was Christmas mornings.
It was saying sorry without shame.
It was your laugh at my worst jokes.
It was every breath we shared when the world felt too loud.

When one of us goes first, the other keeps speaking in love.
Because that’s what we were.

Not a chapter.
Not a story.

A frequency.

A rhythm.

A flame passed gently from heart to heart to always.

And if this book ever falls into someone else's hands someday, someone aching, someone searching, someone wondering if the kind of love we had is real, I hope they feel it.

Because you and I?
We were the proof.

And we still are.