#FridayFlash: Blue Skies

by Peter Etherington (petherin on Twitter)

Their crinkled hands intertwined and held fast. It was his last moment and they both knew it. They accepted it. A sweetness filled their chests, and with it a soft sadness.

The memory was clear for Daphne. It had happened ten years ago. She was now reaching the end of her life. She lay on her bed and recalled those beautiful last minutes with her husband.

A lot of other memories had slipped away, eaten by the dementia that preyed on her brain. But this one, this crucial, poignant memory, had stayed, perhaps anchored more securely than others less weighty with meaning.

She remembered looking at his tearful blue eyes, and how her sight had been blurred by her own tears. So well-earned, those briny droplets, built on sixty years of marriage and love. Charged with such unshakeable affection.

She began singing the song they'd sung to each other when they'd laid together in the fields, in the first days of their courting. Her voice was quiet and wavered, and it broke his heart for the final time. As always, she had effortlessly breached his defences and poured inside, filling him up.

He joined in, his own voice deep but also quiet, and clogged with emotion. She liked its sound – its baritone manliness, lower even than when he'd been a young man, made her feel happy and safe.

The song had been popular during their first romance, a ragtime number. They sang the first verse:

Blue skies smilin' at me
Nothin' but blue skies do I see
Bluebirds singin' a song
Nothin' but bluebirds all day long

They finished and simply looked at each other, and he squeezed her hand and she squeezed back. For a long while, they didn't let go, for this was what their hands were used to.

And then his eyelids had drooped and he had whispered her name, and she'd tightened her grip. But his hand had held on long enough, and it was time. His eyelids opened up again, for a last look at her, and then his head had slowly lowered. His final breath made a funny little noise, and then his chest stopped moving.

She held onto the memory as she'd held onto his hand. She'd held his hand for a long time, because letting go was too hard, but eventually she had relinquished her grip, for there was nothing else to be done. It was over.

What had happened next? She found it difficult to remember. She was confused about the details of the funeral. There was merely a grey vagueness containing loss and bewilderment.

She fell asleep, and on awaking, she recalled her sweetest moments. Her life had wound down and her memories were now the most precious thing in her day. She remembered how it felt to rest her head against his naked shoulder and hear the beat of his heart. But as for those precious last minutes together when they'd sung their song, she'd forgotten them, and they were never recalled again.