My wife and I had a house and it had and still has a very special place in my heart. I had lived with my love for many years, together since we were oh so very young. The house was white with black trimming, but most of the paint was chipped away on the back porch. Our house always seemed to have something about it that set it apart from all the rest. As you walk into the front door of the house you notice a long, slender stairway that led up into the main hallway of the house. The strong smell of cigarette smoke is quite evident when you reach this point.

Yes, my sweetheart did smoke. My beloved had a very softhearted voice that I remember sung me to sleep when I was restless from work. She would wait next to me, cuddled so very close until we fell deep asleep and in the morning she would wake me with the smell of hot freshly cooked breakfast on the table. I remember the burgeoning green of our back-garden meadow in May, was gloriously lush, radiant really. I can’t begin to search for enough descriptive words to distinguish the greens I saw; emerald and viridian; olive, pea and lime. I always became giddy surrounded by robust greenery.

Indeed, it was a green felicity, and the trials and melancholies of winter disappeared with the exhilaration I felt watching emerging blades, vines, and shoots sprout from the soft, life filled soil. As the meadow’s growth flourished, I always kept track of the succession of plants. Golden coins of flowering dandelions carpeted the new grass for a week before fluffing into white globes of seed-carrying filaments. The grasses grew taller. Buttercups and blue flag iris colored the meadow with gold and purple, and daisies added their white blooms.

My sweetheart was the kind, gentle, loving, caring love every man dreams about having. However, the next faithful day, the stuff of hellish nightmares sprouted into life… The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly.

It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited. Chills were running through the rooms of the house, like a ghost silently coming and silently going. Suddenly, in the distance, there was a faint booming sound like a drum being beaten. The noise soon started to get louder and louder and louder until all that could be heard was the deafening noise.

People from houses along the street ran out in their dressing gowns onto the road and huddled together to witness a roaring fire devastating the house of a fragile young woman living nearby. The lady of the house desperately attempted to remove valuable and sentimental items from the burning wreck, but all was in vain as the glaring fire obliterated her irreplaceable possessions and her home. The incandescent flames suddenly erupted scattering fragmented glass and debris several yards away. A thunderous noise that seemed to shatter the eardrum ripped through the sky and the aftershock of the explosion had knocked most people off their feet.

The chillness of the stale, urban air was devoured by the scorching blazes of the vicious element, which had just destroyed the lives of a victim caring woman… And so my one and only love passed away thirty-two years ago and it has been a very rough segment of life, trying to cope with such a big loss. After she died I moved out of the house because I was so overwhelmed by the thoughts of her not being there. It was almost like her kindred spirit still moved about inside the house. She always said that when she died she would always be around to watch over me and to take care of me and I think that is exactly what happened.

I find it very difficult to go to our previous home now that she has passed, but from time to time I used to stop by. As the unfriendly, ice-cold wind travels precipitously over the neglected heath, I used to make the brave step towards the enormous entrance leading into the settlement of her peaceful soul. While I continued at steady pace towards the screeching, corroded gateway I seemed to always feel the irregular and jagged rocks as they were slowing me from reaching up to the gate. The closer I seemed to get towards the overpowering, fully grown gateway the darker the area became with the stealthily moving shadows.

It took me great courage for me to pull open the rusted gates, which scraped my soft skin. Before entering, it had grown a custom for me to gaze up at the sky, at first, I noticed that there seemed to be no stars in the sky except for one, which seemed to be strongly battling and competing with the rest of the darkness in the sky, but day by day, week by week, month by month and year by year, the stars blossomed across the night sky, I believe my sweethearts beauty still lives amongst the stars.

Several years back, when I walked into the remainder of our home I could still smell the Virginia Slim cigarettes she smoked and sometimes I could swear that I can hear her talking. When I walked into her kitchen I expect to see her sitting at the table drinking her coffee and smoking, but she is never there… My age has now restricted me from visiting the domicile, and my mind is now frail and unstable. I don’t believe I can stand upon our once-pearl white porch again and recollect the tender thoughts of a life I once knew. I find it harder to recall the events of that ghastly day, and now, nor do I want to evoke it.

My love is gone, and I can do no such thing with these aged hands to bring her back. I cannot face the vibrant memories of a time when love was pure, so now, I shall leave my sweetheart to rest in peace as will I in later years… I sit here now, fifty nine years of age, on a May morning, watching the promising green of our back-garden. I can’t begin to search for enough descriptive words to distinguish the greens I see. Buttercups and blue flag iris are coloring the meadow with gold and purple, and daisies add their white blooms. My sweetheart was the kind, gentle, loving, caring love every man dreams about having…