Their bedroom had always been a place of love. Not just love for each, but a love for their family as well. Countless nights, the bed contained two kids, two adults, and two beloved family pets. Everyone used to snuggle up close to each other, sharing the warmth and love that radiated off the inhabitants of the bed.

Now, the room was dark and quite. Cheerful laughter was absent from the room along with any signs of happiness. But love did exist near the far side of the room where a man slept peacefully in a hospital bed, while his wife laid next to him in her own bed. Their hands joined together in love and strength. The wife watched as her dying husband continued to take shallow breaths, knowing that it was close to the end.

10 weeks had passed since the husband was first diagnosed with cancer. 10 weeks to hope. 10 weeks of staying strong. 10 weeks of making sure the kids would be alright. 10 weeks of crying. 10 weeks of nothings but hospitals and bad news. 10 weeks of loving her husband more and more, as her drifted farther and farther away.

The wife looked at her husband. All of his hair was gone due to the chemo he had undergone. His body was as weak as it had ever been. The wife remembered what her husband had looked like before he became sick, and attempted to smile at the memory. His hair, black and curly, usually hiding underneath a hat of some sort; his blue jeans always dirty from the work her was doing on the house. But most of all, she remembered his laugh and his voice, and how much she longed to hear it again.

Now looking at the man who lay next to her, she wished her could be like that again; healthy and able to live his life with her for forever. With his stage five cancer though, there was no way he would ever pull through. He was pretty much gone with nothing but a body to keep him on earth. She hated seeing him in the pain in misery that had over taken her once happy and loving husband. The tears started to rain down from her eyes.

The wife, without wiping the tears that poured down onto her face, “spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, “It’s okay. I can handle life from here without you. I love you. It’s okay to let go.”

With tears racing down her face in an uncontrollable stream, kissed her dying husband’s hand, and watched him slip away into oblivion