LOVING AMY

LOVING AMY(Asqarini) She sat alone again on the porch, gazing without a blink at the yard in front of her, empty face. Her mind flew to somewhere. Near the window from our room I looked at her. My wife Linda, the woman I loved very much, she was never to be the same again after the tragedy.

“Perhaps she needs to get medication, she shows the symptoms!” said the psychiatrist, who diagnosed depressions that my wife had, after the loss of our beloved daughter, Amy.

“She always wakes up in the morning, anxiously!” I told the psychiatrist about Linda’s symptoms.

“I think your wife has depression. I will give you the prescriptions, she needs this medication, right away.” I saw him write something on a piece of a paper. I've never liked drugs, or anything related to it, but my wife, I think she needs it a lot.

***

That morning, I sat again on the edge of my bed. She was still sleeping.
'Finally she can sleep tight,' I said to my self. The pills she had last night really helped her to stay in bed. It was a deep loss. Amy, our only daughter, had to leave before us. Because she had been kidnapped and the police found her body. I heard that the kidnapper wanted to sell her, but was carelessly fatal. It was big, horrible, and shocking news. I will never forgive the person who did this. Although he had already been sentenced to jail for years, he had taken my “pumpkin’ Amy, our 3 year-old sunshine, our love and spirit. The man, who took away our little girl’s life, had broken all of the wishes and dreams we had for Amy.

I couldn’t imagine the despair that Linda had on her mind and heart, when she heard the news. What she felt for all of this. We were longing to have a child for seven years, and when the doctor said that my wife couldn’t have another baby, Amy’s presence was like heaven come to us. We were so grateful to have an angel like Amy. But then what really happened, is that the tragedy took everything away. It took Amy, my wife, and even my life. Though I didn’t cry every night. It’s hard to cope with everything. I still learned to control my emotions, but I am thinking about my wife Linda, who is changing into someone I barely know.

“What about yourself, Mr. Cane?” The same psychiatrist who helped Linda asked me the question. ”What do you feel?” he added.

I turned my head to Linda, who sat next to me. Not only her, I felt the same sadness. A long gasp before I answered. “Numb…” finally a word come out from my mouth. “I can’t feel a thing, as if I’m no longer…alive, seeing her like this,” my voice turned husky. He listened to me carefully.

“I hope you’re not falling into the same depressions, Mr. Cane, you need to be strong for your wife and especially for your self. When a ship is sinking, you don’t have to be drowned with it, you have a choice to be saved," he advised.

I understood every word he said. Perhaps I have to safe myself and Linda.

***

It was two weeks passed by. Linda was in Amy’s bedroom. The place, still the same, like the last time Amy was in the room. The drawings on the wall, the pictures of us together at the zoo, where Amy begged to touch the baby giraffe and other animals. From the look on her face, my wife showed nothing but sadness. I stood at the bedroom’s door looking at Linda.

“You need to let her go, honey,” I told her in a soft voice, though deep down inside of me, I'd never be able to do what I asked her.

“But…I miss…my child...my precious…” she uttered, with tremble in her voice.

“I do miss her too, Linda.” I wanted her to know that breathing everyday, knowing our only precious daughter had gone, was not a simple thing to do.

And all the sudden Linda screamed out loud: “I want her back!! Jim….” Linda cried hard and wept. She confronted me and shook my shoulder. "I want ...her back!!” She exploded and continually repeated the sentences.

I stood there stiff for a second. My eyes could hardly stop the tears inside. I almost felt devastated. But then… I hugged her, ”I know …I know….” It was the worst feeling I ever felt, knowing my life had changed drastically, the losing of my only child, and a wife that couldn’t face the reality.

“I think it will help us both, we have to let her go…Linda…she’s gone, anything we do won’t bring her back?" I spoke to her gently, trying to make her sober again. I held her body once again. She cried and later on kept in silence.

“Is this the right way to love her? Memorialize her? Don’t you think that she’ll be very sad to see us like this, Linda?” I tried to explain all the things I was feeling. “Listen to me, have you ever thought that in her entire life she gave us nothing but happiness, that she wants us to be happy, Linda?” I wanted her to listen to every word I said. My heart pounded so hard, so fast, the emotions ran through my blood horribly, and I held my breath. The feeling of hurt inside had taken my sanity. “What about me? Do you still care for me, as your husband? We already lost Amy, now I want my old wife back, please bring her back? Linda!!” I begged, with a trembling and husky voice.

I tried to control my emotions. I looked at her, my eyes were begging her so hard to stop the mourning. Linda looked back at my eyes very long, and then she moved forward a bit.

I am still trying to understand my feelings for her. And then she leaned her head to my shoulder and as moments went by her tears subsided. There was a long silence inbetween. We didn’t say a word. She seemed to be lost in deep thoughts, and then she asked something.

”Can we bring another child into this house?” she looked at me again, wishing my answer.

I never saw anything like it, the searching of another hope, that’s all she showed through her beautiful blue eyes. Hurting her would be another brokenness. I smiled, and said, “Linda…, my soul... if you would consider to adopt a child, I’m sure that Amy is the first person who would be happy. I think it’s our best way to love Amy. Live life like it used to be… again.”

My eyes searched again into hers. The eyes of denial had started to vanish. I hold her again in my arms. A glimpse of a smile eventually emerges on Linda’s face. I believe, somewhere in Heaven, someone, our Precious Angel, feels the same!

June 5th, 2007