Friday July 6, 2018. 12:36am. Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney.
I was only one second a widower when I met her.
The emergency doctor had just finished telling me there was nothing more they could do. Suse lay motionless on the table. Dead. Her beautiful heart arrested. I refuse to say failed. Her heart never failed anyone.
But I was only one second a widower when she approached and introduced herself.
“I’m here to replace your wife,” she stated with an unprecedented coldness. Through my tears, I couldn’t tell if she was beautifully grotesque, or grotesquely beautiful. Whatever the case, I despised her at that moment.
“No-one can ever replace my wife” I uttered. “How dare you come into this moment and insult me, how dare you offend our love? Get away from me.” Despair subdued my rage.
“Scott. I know you don’t like me. But I’m here to replace your wife,” she responded. Her directness turned my stomach. “I don’t know you. Get away from me. How do you know my name?”
“Scott. You do know me. And you will know me. You only need to look at me and you’ll see the resemblance.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Go away! I don’t know you!”
“Ahh but you do,” she replied smugly. “Look at me. Look at me closely. You’ll see it, if you just look at me.”
I hesitated a look. And I reeled.
“You see it don’t you?”
“Yes” I admitted. “But what…how?”
“I’m your offspring” she said. “Like your children, I’m a product of your love”
“You will never be like my children, and you will never replace my wife,” I protested.
“Don’t resist love, Scott. You don’t have a choice. I’m here to stay. I know you don’t like me. But I’m here because of the love you shared with Susie.” She spoke with a measured calmness and rationality which violated the moment. But she knew her place, when I didn’t know mine.
I mustered a response “You don’t know me. You didn’t know her. You have no idea what we shared.” But she was winning the day.
“Scott, I know exactly what you shared. Because I am what you shared. I am just the past tense of your relationship. I am Grief.”
As she spoke her name, the reality hit me with the force of a hundred sledge hammers. She put out her hand and shook my soul into oblivion. I sunk into the wall of the hospital and wept.
“I’m here to replace your wife”
I knew it. I just didn’t want to acknowledge it.
I was now two seconds a widower.
