The Audacity of Hope

The only sensation was pain. Maggie closed her eyes and hung her head. Her shaking hands were folded on her lap, fingers entwined and clenching one another. She tried to take a deep breath to regain her composure when the rifle shots sounded overhead, making her jump. Images of Jason flashed through her head in that instant: laughing, smiling, running down the beach on their honeymoon and her breath caught. The lump in her chest moved up into her throat and escaped through her pursed lips against her will.

Additional rounds of rifle shots rang overhead, seeming to only shout to the world one syllable insults: "GONE!" "ALONE!" "DEAD!" Maggie opened her eyes and hot tears ran down her face almost unnoticed as she tried to breathe, tried not to scream, tried to be like the other wives.

Her wet eyes blinked as she looked but didn't see. The flag draped casket, the flowers, the family and friends, the blue sky, the trees, the neighboring headstones - none of that existed for Maggie. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't move, she couldn't think. All she felt was pain. Her heart sat cold and heavy in her chest like a chunk of frozen stone. It stopped beating for her when she opened her front door to the uniformed men on her porch four days ago. Four days without Jason.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the feeling of something in her hands. She blinked again and more tears ran down her pale face. Her distraught mind barely registered the man handing her the folded flag; couldn't focus on his words. Past his arm she once again saw Jason's coffin and again her breath caught in her chest. Fresh tears flooded down her face and over the flag in her lap.

Someone led her to the car which took her to the church where she weakly managed to say that she wanted to go home.

Home was worse: the empty rooms only seemed to echo Jason's absence. The pictures on the mantel were just reminders her that she had no reason to smile. The empty half of her bed reminded her that she had no one to love her, or support her, or comfort her and tell her things would be all right.

She laid in bed and cried for another week; too upset to get up, too weak to get dressed or eat, too distraught to face life on her own. She looked up through her bedroom window and saw blue sky. She could hear birds singing, children laughing, cars driving past carrying their occupants to work, to the store, to their lives and for the first time since she lost her husband Maggie became angry.

How can the world go on without Jason in it? How dare everyone just keep on going like he didn't matter. How.... She stopped crying and realized that she wasn't left with nothing. She still had everything Jason had worked hard to provide for her, everything he had given her, every memory they had shared and she still had the opportunity to to live the dreams that they had planned out together. She couldn't throw Jason's work away. She couldn't be the person that made his life meaningless. She owed Jason so much. She had to get up.

Maggie had her moments, of course; times when she was overwhelmed with grief. She had times when she put on his t shirts or dress shirts and laid down on their bed and talked to him. She had times when she had to go through old photos so she could see him again. She had times when she had to squirt his cologne on his side of the bed so she could smell him, and her heart still ached with his absence.

"One step at a time, Mags," she told herself, like he had told her so many times during their eight years together. "One step at a time."

Maggie went back to work. It wasn't easy at first. She couldn't seem to face the people who knew her and cared about her. She found she could at least maintain the illusion of "okay" as long as no one asked her if she was all right. That one question had the ability to just tear through her resolve and composure. One compassionate "Are you all right, Maggie" and she broke into tears and had to run to the bathroom and hide until she could stop crying.

The hours turned into days, the days turned into weeks and she was functioning. She was working, taking care of the house and trying to get back to feeling like she was living instead of surviving.

One morning almost six weeks after Jason's funeral the pregnancy test she'd gotten at the drug store gave her a positive sign. She didn't go to work that day and instead went to her gynecologist who gave her a quick vaginal ultrasound and the first peek at her baby.

Clothes, cologne, pictures and memories weren't all she had left of Jason. Part of him was alive and growing inside her. For the first time since he died Maggie felt true hope and the healing rays of happiness. After the doctor left the exam room Maggie looked heavenward and smiled.

"Thank you, Jason. Even now you're still looking after me."

For the first time since he died there was more in her heart than just the sensation of pain.