text: There was no way to know what his last thoughts were. Were they of her? Of that morning just 2 short weeks ago, that would soon feel like a lifetime ago for her, when he woke before her, sunshine dancing in waves on her face as sleep was deeply engraved in her. He couldn’t help but stare. How did he get her here, he would think. How did she think he was good enough? His heart seized with gratitude as he watched her freckled chest rise with each breath. she was his and the sunlight was basking her in its glow. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered and a smile teased the corner of her lips. “Marry me” he said in a hushed tone. Or maybe it was the memory from a year prior. Her checks were on fire and tears teased at the corner of her eyes. “I fucking love you” Oceans were roaring in his ears. Love? Who the fuck said this was love. He wasn’t cut out for this. Good things like her didn’t happen to him. Expect now she was declaring her love for him. “You don’t know love Gwen. Not even your own parents loved you” Too far he thought. Too late “Fuck you” The air felt frigid. Stale. After the door slammed. Maybe it was fear. He could feel the blood streaming from his chest. No one was coming this time. No one was going to be a hero today. He was utterly alone and terrified. Where were his comrades? Was this what it felt like to die, he thought? It wasn’t u til this very moment he would realize how fucked this situation was. He didn’t sign up for his deployment to end short. He didn’t sign up to die. At what point do an individuals memories no longer exist? The fear was coasting though his veins, tears streaming from his blue eyes, mixing with the soil below him. To die alone is a feat on its own. One no individual should have to face, yet, here he was. Alone. Scared. And dead. Maybe it was the day his own father died. Maybe he thought of watching his father collapse on the trails before him, clasping his chest in agony. He could see the terror in his fathers eyes, the same ocean eyes he had, the same terror in his own as as he died, simply pleading “help” What does one do at 16 when his father does from a heart attack at 45. In the near future there would be anger, a casket, a sea of black. His father was a popular man. It seemed every employee of his would show for the funeral. But that wouldn’t matter to him. He’d just hear the same roaring he heard when he was sitting next to his fathers lifeless body on a running trail. The same roaring he’d hear when Gwen muttered her I love yous years later. Eventually another runner would come through. But until then, these would be his last moments with his father. He had no phone. No way to call for held as he helplessness attempted CPR. so instead, in the end he just sat there. Tears threatening the surface of his eyes and holding his fathers hand. It would be this moment he’d think of through out the years. A defining moment. It would hinder him as he grew. It would seep into anything good I. His life, slowing tainting it with the anxiety of the moment of his fathers death. Maybe he thought of nothing. Maybe he didn’t have time to think of anything of value. Of importance. Maybe in the end it wasn’t her. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t his father. Maybe quite simply, he died instantly. There is no grandiose delegation of love parting his lips. No thoughts of leaving those he loved behind and no thoughts of “maybe this is what my father felt like” Because in the end maybe we are just a collection of cells and memories that have their time, and eventually evaporate. There not much that can be said regarding what flashes In The human consciousness moments before it courses to black and the consciousness is no longer what makes you a person. Those memories, feelings, hopes, dreams, are deferred indefinitely because there is no longer a person to fulfill them. She would never know what his last thoughts were. She would never know if they were if her or not. She would never know if he felt fear, if he felt acceptance, if he felt remorse. All she knew was the father figure in her life was dead, and so was his son. The cliche love of her life. But how does one move on from a moment like this. From the knock at the door. From the utter and undeniable pain clutching her heart as her husbands roommates held her up, undeniable tears of their own. After all he was their best friend too. All she knew was that he was dead. Defunct. Because the harsh truth of it is no one really knows what his last thoughts were. All these maybes and theories are just a hypothosis that she would make up in her mind. They would run fleetingly on repeat in the days after finding out her husband was no longer alive, each one making her heart ache just a little bit more. And while she didn’t know if his last thoughts were of the ones he loved, what she did know was her last thoughts were to be of him.