My love is gone

My love is gone

My wife and I had just been married a few years, when I received some
bad news.
The lumber company where I was working was talking about cutting back.
I was caught off guard, they talk about laying off one day then from
out of
no where two days later me and a few others were laid off at the same
time. After a few weeks being
laid off, my wife and I were worried quite a bit about what was going
to happen to us with neither one of
us working. Then I received a phone call from a
friend of mine who got me a job working for a big cement company. After
working there for five years, my wife and I couldn't believe this was
happening again. After years when everything was going beautifully the
company closed up and went out of business .They told all of the
employees that they
had to close the doors due to some poor
investments the company had made. My wife and I were devastated by what
happened, we had no money saved and were renting an apartment in this
small town. We loved this town, we didn't want to move to a big city to
work but it was looking more
and more like we would probably have to move into
a bigger town. My wife and I would try everything to stay there after
five years it was a part of us.
She would tell me, she didn't want to move
somewhere else to look for work.
We would hold each other and she would whisper to me I just want to be
close to you and hold you and
tell you how much I love you and I am so afraid that we might be apart,
I could not bear it. We were so much in love it was hard for us being
apart even
when I was working. I had trouble leaving her in the morning to go to
work. We loved each other more than I can put down in words in this
story.
When I worked for the cement company it was hard not seeing her for
eight hours. I know it must sound strange but for all those years we
were married
I would be thinking about her all the time.
I would be at the store or at the mall and I would be thinking of her.
When I would be coming from work,
I would turn down our street and see her from a distance standing in
front of the apartments waiting
for me. When I would pull up alongside the curb she would run out to
the car and tell me how much she missed me all day. I would open the
door to the car and grab her and hold her with both of my arms and kiss
her and tell her that I loved her to death.
It was hard being away from her. We were both very much in love with
each other.
This is about how much I miss her and
how I lost her.
A short time after losing that job at the cement company, she kept
telling me she wanted to go out and find a job to get us back on our
feet so we
would not have to move. I told her maybe we should go to a bigger city
to look for work. She insisted that she would get a job here in town. A
furniture store manager in town heard that she was looking for work. He
called and offered her a job working four hours a day but it would be
in the evenings from 5 to 9.
We talked it over and with a smile on her face she said, it's not too
far from here, I think it will work out ok. I told her it was fine with
me. I did not like her working evenings but we both agreed that it
would
be ok for a while. I held her in my arms and put my head against her
head and whispered in her ear
I love you. She had worked there three days when
a man walked in and was asking about a special dresser at the far end
of the store.
She proceeded to take him to look at the dresser when he stopped her in
the center of the store and said, this is a hold up and pulled a gun
from his pocket and pressed it against her head, she started
to scream, the robber panicked and pulled the trigger. She died
instantly. The cops arrived and arrested the robber. The store manager
was there when it happened, he had told the police officers that
when
he pulled the gun and pressed it against her head
she screamed in fear and that's when he pulled
the trigger. It's been a year since that happened. When I was notified
of my wife's murder I went into
a rage, I started breaking things.
I cried and screamed at the top of my voice and
a cold chill came over me and stayed with me for days. I would scream
and scream, honey what happened I can't believe you're gone. I would
sit on the edge of the couch for hours at a time. I wouldn't shower for
days and lost a lot of weight.
I couldn't adjust to losing her. Eventually I ended up
in the hospital. They gave me different kinds of medicine to calm me
down, I would break out crying over and over. I would lay in the
hospital bed for
hours weeping on and off. In a slow slobbering voice
I would mumble, I lost her, what am I going to do?
I want to die I can't live without her.
The doctor would come into the room and I would tell him, I can't go on
without her, he would put his hand
on my shoulder and tell me I would be ok. I give you something to help
you relax so you could get a few hours sleep. When people would talk to
me in the hospital I would say one or two words and then
break down sobbing.
She was on my mind constantly I would close
my eyes and see her standing there in front of me
not moving her lips, but I could hear her say,
" I miss you."
When I am alone I often talk to her.
Three weeks later when the landlord when to collect rent at the small
apartment that he was staying at
she noticed that there was a few newspapers and some advertisements
stuck to the door knob.
She let herself in when there was no answer at the door. She saw him
slumped over in the chair.
She backed out of the room and shut the door
softly behind her. She notified the police.

A fictional story by Norman Clifford
1-4-2003