The Grand Gift of Life

    She stood over the grave, fresh tears making it down her face one by one to fall to the earth. Those tears are what called him, called him back to finish what was needed. He started as a shadow and slowly came into a hazy focus.   
    "Your family needs you darling, and as my last act I'm going to give you a second chance," she felt a tingle on her cheek where his hand had touched. He then burst into what looked like star dust and drifted away in the light breeze that came with the colorful rustic display the trees showed off in the fall.
    Skyler fell to the ground just missing her head on the marble headstone and found nothing but darkness. She woke up after what felt like a life time in a hospital bed with her husband sitting next to her, stroking her hand with his callused fingers. She was so glad to see him but it quickly evaporated into distress about what exactly had happened and what she was remembering.
    "I was so worried you wouldn't wake up, it's been days," her husband kissed her cheek and left to find the nurse to announce the happy news. Skyler's husband, Bill, came back shortly with a young nurse in tow to check her vitals. Once the doctor made it by Skyler was finally able to get some answers to a few questions that she had prepared while waiting.
    "The tubular aneurysm was the main problem, it ruptured causing massive internal bleeding, it's a miracle you survived," the doctor smiled kindly to her, "We were able to stitch it and it doesn't look like we will have to do a hysterectomy but you won't be able to have any children either. We found cancerous cells in your uterus, we were able to scrape it out but you will have to be seen regularly to keep it in check."
    Skyler laid there for the next couple of days until she could be discharged. Her mind kept wondering back to the events in the cemetery. She needed answers and she couldn't stand lying there any longer, it was driving her mad. She knew her husband wasn't going to want her anymore now that they couldn't have a child together.
    A few months later things were much better than those nights laying in the hospital. Bill and Skyler's relationship had flourished and she now knew how much her husband truly loved her, he had been there every step of the way. He had told her that everything would be fine that for them to have a child didn't require her to be pregnant and that adoption was not out of the question.
    Today Skyler had planned to do some shopping and meet some friends for lunch. She was looking at a new purse she liked in a window when she noticed a little shop tucked back behind all the hustle and bustle. When she walked in her senses were assaulted by different incenses and oils, there was all sorts of herbs and strange things on the shelves with a little old lady sitting on the back side of an old oak table reading cards and little stones.
    "You have been touched by death recently, haven't you child?" The lady said without introduction, "please come sit with me."
    Skyler sat across from her and folded her hands in her lap, "what would you know about that?"
    "Only that it was a great sacrifice dear, but it also gave new life," the lady stopped looking over her cards and stones and gazed into her eyes.
    "You mean he saved my life with the sacrifice of his soul? Then what happens to someone that does that?" Skyler started to fall to pieces she couldn't bare to think her best friend and lover no longer even had a soul.
    "They are granted reincarnation, his soul is now growing in your womb. He not only saved you from death but new life was granted as well. It is a grand gift, life." And after those last words the little old lady evaporated as well as everything that had been in the shop.