Time

Time- could be something that is wanted or needed, or something that is a griping pain in the stomach; depends on your perspective.

Time passes by excruciatingly slow when you are waiting for someone who is late, or at a boring lecture when the teacher just goes on endlessly yapping away about how volcanoes are formed (like who cares?).

On the contrary, Time is wanted and needed (badly) when you are having a great time with friends, or when you know the time spend with a person is short lived.

And yes, how horrible it must have feel to be in a latter situation when you are desperately, trying all ways,  to cling on to every second of the day, to care for, and be with a person. For you know, Time is being an evil overcast lurking to pound on you and remove the person you care for the most from your life. You will never know when this will happen, all you know is that, soon, Time will tell… …

Jonathan was my high school crush, then the love of my life. We had great plans together. After college, we would travel the world, go places, and just enjoy the company of one another. We build a dream together, Our Dream- filled with cheerful love, and bliss.

Everything was perfect. It was an excellent time, to go on our adventure around the world. Then, ‘perfect’ timing. He just collapsed- together with the wonderful plan we had created. Jonathan had cancer- third stage stomach cancer. He had been putting it off, and not telling anyone, because he wanted to spend the last moments he had on our adventure.

From that day of his collapse, life for us were not the same. It was precarious, not only for him as a patient, but for me. For me to see his health deteriorate slowly and painfully every single day was like me stabbing myself in the heart a zillion times, and lived another day to repeat the same action of stabbing. It was a mental and physical torture.

He would always greet me with a warm smile on his pale dried lips and watery eyes. His once golden tanned skin had now turned into a yellow shade due to the less exposure in the sun. I had always wanted to bring him out on a picnic  or on a calm boat ride but the doctors and nurses forbade me to do so, saying he was too weak to be exposed outside.

Every day, I would be in the hospital. No matter how tired I was from work, I went there. I needed to spend every second Time had given me. I needed the moment, I wanted the moment with him.

There were some good times in the hospital too. We would reminisce about days in high school and college, on how he tried to woo me, and how I played hard to get. Then, we would laugh it off, and thought how silly it was to waste so much time, when we could just cut to the chase, and be with each other- because Time was just way too dear like that.

Alas, there were also moments in the hospitals when Time was morbidly unforgiving. Jonathan would suddenly blackout, and I would be on a panic mode with all cells in my body on high alert preparing for anything that would happen to him.

And when days like this happened, I would often bawl my eyes to sleep, in fear that when dawn approaches, nurses would find Jonathan dead in his sleep, and the incoming dreadful hospital phone call may just send me into the heavens along with him.

Months passed, and Jonathan was not getting any better. He was in the terminal stage of his illness. His days were numbered. He knew it, and without fail, he still puts on the most dashing smile I have ever seen.

One day, as usual, as I was walking along the same corridors of the hospital, it hit me… The smell of ‘hospital air’ is really contagiously saddening. It was like death awaits for any poor soul to be set free from the human body, and then ‘poof’- death engulfs the soul like a snake ambushing its prey.

No! I could not do this. I could not let Jonathan spend his last days in a hospital of death! He had not left that wretched place in a very long time. I had to get him out.

I sneaked him out of the hospital that day, and I told him that we would have one- just one normal day together. Just the two of us. We went to the jetty, and cruised  along the calm lifeless lake where we had our first date.

It was like Time was being benevolent, and reverted back to 7 years ago. That day was like any other fine looking day, but to us, it was the best day of our lives. 7 years ago, we would let the gentle current of the lake drift us slowly to nowhere. And now, 7 years later, Time has brought has us back to where it all begin.

I was seated at the rear of the mini boat, crossed legged, and arms wrapped around Jonathan’s shoulders, while he had his head resting on my lap, with his legs stretched out. It was silent. The whole time, he was looking at me, and I, at him.

Drifted by the current, and with him close to me, sad thoughts flooded my mind of what could possibly happen to him any moment. I was quick to hide it with a weak smile and I would look up into the sky to distract myself. I couldn’t let him see that his illness was killing me. Though, I was convinced, he knew.

We were at the lake for maybe an hour or two, but it only seemed like a minute or so. Time had decided to change its mind to be gracious, and it wanted to take it all back.

His body was icy cold. Then an autumn breeze blew in our direction. I saw him opened his mouth.

‘… I … ‘

‘Sshhh… I know… I know…’

With that, he closed his eyes, and the cool breeze took him away.

Then… I was alone on that lake.

‘… I love you too…’

I never knew when this would happen, but Time told me somehow. And I got to spend the final moments with him- for that, I thank Time.