Regret...

He apprehensibly walked into the sanitized white room, hearing the respirator straining, pushing air into the body behind the curtain.  He rationalized that whatever it was behind the curtain couldn't possibly be human, couldn't be his love.  He had known her to be a woman of exquisite design.  Curves in all the right places, lovely, long dark curls that stretched just past her shoulders and eyes of the most sparkling green.  Her eyes were the color of Jade, which was; coincidentally, the pet name he had called her for years.

He didn't want to open the curtain, because his picture of her would forever be changed.  How long had she been sick and how long had he not coped with it?  He couldn't remember, but knowing that he couldn't remember, he knew, at once, that period of time must be great.  He had promised her that he would never leave her, but that; like other promises that he made, was easily broken.  He knew, now that he had to be here, had to see her, and wish her off.

He walked closer to the curtain and could see the outline of a body, just on the other side.  He remembered her smile, and how much that she loved to dance and to write, and how very special that she was, not only to him, but to everyone that she came into contact with.  She never failed to make you, or anyone, feel special.  He heard the echoes of her laughter ringing in his mind's eye, and remembered how she had cried happy tears; and let him suffer, without an answer for all of five seconds when he had asked her to marry him.

He remembered how heartbroken that she had been when the doctors told her that it wasn't possible for her to conceive a child, and how many months that she had cried, late at night, when she thought that he was asleep, but never knew that he wasn't.  She didn't know that it had pained him, as well, but that was the beginning of the end.

The love that they had shared had stagnated a little, and the time that they spent together was now less and less.  He had moved out and filed for divorce within the year because the occasional argument had now become an everyday event.  It wasn't for a lack of love, on either part, but the lack of knowledge in the ability to grow past tthe goal that they had both wanted for a very long time, children.

The courage had left him, standing weak-willed at the curtain, but a nurse had come into the room to check on her, and done the deed that he hadn't mustered the courage to do.  It had been probably two years since her had  seen her last.  He couldn't remember what the doctor had said that she had, but did know that he had said that she didn't have very long, and didn't even really know how she had hung on as long as she did.  Her body was wracked with pain and she was living completely artificially, tubes running this way and that.

She had lost so much weight, and the beauty that was her, still present, but fading fast.  Her body, once lush, was now emaciated and depleted of needed resources for survival.  Her skin, black and blue, and the blood vessels, where the needles had violated, were in severe distress.
He drew closer to her, took her hand, but immediately let go when he saw the expression on her face registering pain and saw her eyes open slowly and strained.  There is a lot that he didn't know about life, especially the end part, but he looked into her eyes, he could see her speaking volutes with just only them.  The spoke of hardship and of pain.  Unbelievable, unfathomable pain that was evident in her physical condition, but the true pain was that which he had given her, and now understood what she was trying to convey.

Her eyes tried their hardest to focus in on him as her body began to reject her presence.  She reached up to touch him, tears coming down her cheeks, straining against the violation of the breathing tube.  In the end, she just stared at him and as she saw the tears beginning to flow down his cheeks, her life stopped and the light faded from her eyes.