The woman in the blue dress is talking about her husband, and I can see from a distance that she's crying. She's telling the group how overwhelmed she is, how she can't even remember the last time she was happy. How she fears letting other people in ever since she lost the love of her life.
I look down at my hands and flick my thumb nail over a piece of loose skin on my palm. I remember how his boney arms felt around me when I was resting my head against his chest and he would hum songs to me, his lips against my hair.
That was before the cancer came. Before he passed away. Before my world just fell apart.
"Yes."
I look up and the woman is still talking. I see her reach out and put her hand on the man's shoulder. I see her smile and look at the ceiling.
"Time has stopped for me during this time, and I can't feel it when it comes back."
"You are a pilgrim on the path of grief," says the man's voice. But I don't know when he ever said that last time. Sometimes he just says things without warning. Even though I'm not much of a church person, I love it here in our church. I always have.
"Yes. I may have lost my husband, but this church has given me new life. I was lost, but now I have found focus. I have found new friends, and I have found a new purpose."
"I will try to be a friend to you."
"You will be a friend to her."
I look up to see the all blonde man walk into the room. The woman sobbing with her head and her hands over her face stops. Her left hand is still on his shoulder, and she looks up to him wearily.
The woman stands up. She looks over to the man she had been holding, and I see his lips curl into a faint smile. He nods to her, and she wipes a tear from her cheek before leaving the room.
"She will need to sort through many things, and she will need patience and she will need positivity. She will need to learn to grieve, to move on, and to find fullness in this new life."
He says this last part of the prayer as he finishes the sign of the cross before getting up and exiting the room.
I stand up too. He takes hold of my arms and kisses my forehead. I smell the lavender in his cologne and notice the movie-night on his sweater.
"She will experience many ups and down throughout this journey. She will face his death, your death, other deaths, the death of your family, the loss of the people closest to you. And she will still weep a river before she can step away on dry land again."
"It's going to be okay, darling."
"I know. You'll always have me. Your heart is not dead or frozen or wounded. You can still love and be loved. You can still feel and fix your heart."
"You always have a way to say the right thing."
He kisses me again. His lips feel sticky with rain, and my eyes water. "Our heart will always be broken. We can never escape the pain. Yet, even when we suffer, we can still feel life."
"Your words help me feel God's passion and love."
"I know. And I will nurture your soul when you are no longer with us."
I close my eyes. "I know."
"She was not prepared to take your place as your wife," he says, "She was not deserving of it. You will be with us always, my dear."
"Yes."
His arms squeeze my waist, and he holds me close. He holds me close as I remember why I fell in love with him. I feel his lips on my shoulder. They are impossibly warm. I close my eyes.
I fall into sleep.
The rain falls along the periphery of my consciousness. I can smell the faint scent of sweat and the scent of him on his sweater. It floats in the air and greets my nose, and it raises goosebumps along my forearms as they brush past the fabric.
I try to keep my eyes closed, but they flicker open, and his lips brush my earlobe.
"Our heart will always be broken," he whispers, "We can never escape the pain,"
I drift, and my body goes limp as I sleep. I'm content.
His kiss on my ear is soft. It's the type of kiss that momentarily draws your thoughts away from the world around you and into your own little world.
But then, when my eyes open, I see his lips on the two freckles on my forehead, and his fingers brush along the edge of my hair.
"We can still feel life."
His hair falls into my eyes in waves, and I watch it as his lips cup my cheek and then steal my last breath.