Volume of Life

I met my husband when we were in our twenties. The time when no one really knew themselves, or at least I didn't know me. But he did. He knew me from the moment we met, and he knew himself too.

His smile was so bright and warm, like the sun. I couldn't look at him for too long because it hurt. He always had enough happiness for both of us.

I always felt detached. Life went by, day after day. School, homework, sleep. Repeat. Then, it was work, chores, sleep. Repeat. Everything droned together like someone covered my ears to muffle the sound, nothing loud enough to stick out.

And then he took me by the hand, and I could finally hear a song above those muffled tones.

It wasn't every day, but we would just get in his car and drive at least every few days. The destination didn't matter, and I think that was the point. A dirty diner with plastic menus, a lone apple tree in a field, an abandoned warehouse to play in until the cops came. A new experience each time, so unlike the rest that there was no way I could forget it. No way I could forget him.

He was always so adventurous, so passionate about everything in a way that those around him couldn't help but get wrapped up in. He never changed for anyone, and some might say that he was stubborn, but he just knew what he wanted.

Another way to put it might be that when I thought about how I felt, it was as though the volume on everything was turned way down to almost nothing. His was always maxed out, and when we were together, it felt like we resonated with each other, harmonized and in sync.

His favourite flower was the marigold. Specifically, the orange type, but he wasn't fussy. He was never fussy. We had them at our wedding, thousands of them in rows of different colours like a gradient of the sun's rays at dusk, like his smile after he said 'I do.' After that, they were my favourite as well.

It wasn't perfect, of course, we fought sometimes, and it was usually always the same argument. I have trouble expressing myself, and he can be inconsiderate at times. Thankfully it was never long-lasting, and before either of us could say anything we regretted, he would apologize. He was the first to stop a fight and held my hand for a long while after each. If it was something he was particularly sorry about, then I would find a bouquet of marigolds on the dining table and a note with an apology.

The first time I had a miscarriage would fatefully be my last, and things went muffled again for a while. The volume on our relationship turned way down, and it stayed that way as it usually does when something breaks.

After that, though, the volume was cranked right up in another way for me. I cried a lot when he wasn't around. Sometimes in bed, I couldn't control it and wept myself to sleep with our backs nearly touching each other in the dead of night. I could still feel the warmth of him next to me, and at least that helped a bit.

He told me to get in the car one day but didn't tell me where we were going. We eventually came to a graveyard, where he showed me a tiny plot he had bought and a gravestone with what we would have called our son written on it. We both cried that night, but we faced each other for the first time in a long while.

From there, things went back to how they were before the miscarriage. We also went to counselling, which I would say helped us both as a couple and helped me recognize the problem I had emoting.

Knowing we couldn't have children eventually lightened things in subtle ways. We didn't have to worry about raising a child when we probably wouldn't be the best parents, no added expenses, and we could focus on ourselves.

Our car adventures to diners and warehouses turned into trips around the world and visiting places that many tourists don't. Rice farms in Japan, hidden Croatian lakes, historical ruins so far off the beaten path you had to make your own. I had more memories of my life dialled up to eleven than I knew what to do with.

And then, he was diagnosed with cancer.

Throughout it all, the chemo, the pain, the medication's side effects, he kept joking, kept loving life, kept smiling as warmly as the sun. Some days it felt like I was trying harder than he was, though. Some days it felt like he had resigned himself to his decline, and as much as I fought, he stopped caring. Instead of harmony, at that point, we became opposites. Not discordant but cancelling. Until eventually, I joined him again, and I resigned myself as well.

The day after he died, I came home to find a bouquet of marigolds placed by a family friend, but the note was from my husband. His last message to me reading: "I'm sorry I can't be there for you anymore. I love you, always."

I cried more then than I ever had or ever will. His warmth was gone from my bed, not even his back there to comfort me, and his smile like the sun would never return except in my memories. A pale shadow, a muted song of the genuine happiness he gave to me.

But I'll always have one thing that can turn that volume back up for me. I'll always have the marigolds.