Ashes to Ashes

"Mr Evans?" The voice belonged to a tall man clad in a white lab coat, shirt and suit trousers beneath.

"Yes." John said, standing and facing the doctor.

"I'm sorry, there's nothing more we can do. She's fought it as far as she can but..."

"How long?"

"A few days, maybe a week, no more than that though. I'm sorry, I wish there was something else we..."

John cut him off "Sorry? For what Doctor? It's not your fault, you didn't cause this after all. No, thank you, for everything you've done for us. It's meant more than you could know." All the usual phrases John thought, disgusted with himself even as he said the words. They were right, true, but of no comfort to either man now.

"You can see her if you wish, she's stable for now. If... if it's any consolation, she will feel very little pain before..."

John nodded silently, not trusting himself to speak. Turning away he took a single deep breath and walked into the room. To his surprise there seemed at first glance to be very little wrong with the woman in the bed, a single sensor connected to a pulse monitor and an IV drip were the only obvious things that set the scene apart from an evening at home.

"Hey." Liz said, her smile seeming to lift years from her face as he walked over. "How are you love?"

"I've been better Liz. I... I presume they..."

"Yes, they told me. John, this isn't a surprise to either of us, we've known this was coming for a long time now..."

"That doesn't make it any easier!"

"No, no it doesn't love. But it does give you time to think, lying in here I mean, and I think I've realized something I might not have ever told you."

"What?"

"I can't imagine now, looking back, ever living a life without you. You've made the years worth living John, every day worth fighting for."

"You've told me that before Liz". John smiled at her, reaching out to her hand, slipping it into his.

"I... I have? When?"

"Every time you smiled. Every time I heard you laugh and every time I woke up with your head nestled on my shoulder. Every single time I was with you Liz, you told me."

A pause filled the room, and to John's surprise he saw not tears in her eyes but a compassion and caring so deep it stunned him. "I love you, you know that as well, right?" Liz asked.

John didn't reply but lent over and kissed her, gently, carefully, feeling her spirit, as strong now as it ever was, pulsing through him for those few brief moments before he was forced to pull back.

"Did... did you bring it?" Liz asked, her voice catching in her throat.

"Yeah, but I was wondering if you'd mind... if you'd mind if I read it to you." John replied, his own throat feeling as if there was a tennis ball lodged there.

"God, of course not, please." Liz sad, settling back slightly against the pillow and half closing her eyes. John pulled a single sheet of paper out of his pocket and, keeping his voice low so as not to disturb the other patients in the ward, started to read.

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Step

The wind died, John's coat fluttering down around his body as he stood before the simple marble marker on the hillside. Slowly he crouched down before it, his fingers brushing the engraving, cleaning away the water.

"Elizabeth Evans. In Loving Memory"

As he looked at the inscription, John felt against all expectation a sense of peace wash over him, the grief and pain lessening for the first time in month as finally he realized what he had come here to say.

"I miss you."