Red Light
What if you could read the minds of people around you? What would that sound like?
Red Light
I hate red lights. Such a waste of my time. Ok, you can turn green anytime now, I’m going to be late.
Ugh! COME ON!! Here I am frustrated and look at this guy next to me. Calm as a cucumber, not a care in the world. Lucky him. Must be nice to not have stress. Uh oh! He just caught me staring! His eye’s look so sad. I wonder why? As quickly as I pondered what the cause of his sadness was, I heard him reply.
Ma’am I’m not calm, I’m numb. I have sat day in and day out at my wife’s bedside during her hospice care. That woman was the reason I woke, the reason I smiled, the reason I was happy everyday just to exist. And she’s gone. Oh, she was a fighter. Strongest being I’ve ever known, but she’d never say that. She’d say how weak she was, a doormat for others to walk all over. Couldn’t be further from the truth. She never knew that she was the flashlight that got me through my darkest times, when I’d dug a hole so deep and buried myself so far down, you’d think I was on lockdown. But there she was, my flashlight, shining that light to lead me out of this abyss I’d created. It was that spirit that gave her as many breaths as she was able to take in, for that much longer. Everyday I sat at that bed and prayed to God to just give me one more day with my smile, just one more. You see, I was thinking that maybe in that day, I’d figure out how to wake up and find it without her. But I never did. I found myself begging again, please, just one more day. Today was the day that all of that practicing was suppose to pay off. To begin this life without her. Practice is suppose to make perfect, right? No. No amount of practice prepared me for a life without the sole reason for my existence. So, no ma’am, I’m not calm. I just feel nothing. I feel nothing without her beside me in this car. Nothing as I drive to our home where she will no longer be. You are in a hurry and angry, trying to rush through your day, impatiently waiting for that light to turn green. Me? I honest to God hope this light stays red. Because as soon as it changes, my new life that I’ve practiced for day after day, is about to begin, and it’s a road I never wanted to travel without her.
With my eye’s filled with tears and an ache in my heart for this man whom I’d just thought was so much more fortunate than I, l looked up at that red light and felt gratitude instead of anger. Gratitude for how great my life was. And why was I so impatient anyway? Grateful that he could stay a little longer and for just a moment or two more not have to deal with the pain that was suddenly upon him.
And then there it was. The green light I was begging for and the green light this man had been hoping his eyes wouldn’t have to see. Turning his face back at me, those eye’s filled with such a weight of complete agony said to me..
Have a great day ma’am.
As I slowly pressed my foot on the gas pedal, I realized that red light didn’t seem like my worst enemy anymore.
Michelle L. Smith
