To My Husband,
Damn. It is true what they say about when you are dying your life flashes before your eyes. But, not in the way you think. Right now, as I am gasping for air and my breathing is slowing and as the lights are getting dim in the room around me, I have only thoughts of what could have been. I have only thoughts of what I should have done. I have only thoughts of what everyone will think when they learn the truth about the way that I died. My mom, my friends, my child. Have a left them anything at all? What kind of legacy did I set up for them? Will My baby be taken care of? Gasping, but there is no air coming in or out. Darkness settles upon my eyes. I feel no pain. I hear nothing, and I see nothing. All I have is regret.
I never should have married you. You and I were too young but we thought we were in love. Back then I thought if you were jealous, that meant that you loved me. I enjoyed being your possession. "You are MY girl!" you would say. That made me feel wanted . Sometimes when I felt unappreciated, I would do things to make you jealous just to see if you still cared. Remember that one night when Trish and I went to the movies and I stayed out all night? It was right after you and I first moved in together. You called me like 50 times that night wanting to know where I was. We got a kick out of that too! I was even bragging to my home girls about how sprung I had you. But when I got home you showed me a thing or two. I remember walking through the door and you jumped from behind the couch, grabbing me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall, asking me over and over where the hell I was. That was the first time you ever laid hands on me. I thought about leaving you then, but my mother advised against it. She said you were a good man and that I brought it on myself for being out all night. Besides, I had to think about the baby. I wanted a two parent household and I knew I couldn't raise Malachi alone. You weren't his father but you were the closest thing he had to one and I wasn't going to take that from him.
I stayed with you another 2 years before you found work but by then , you had become a pot head. By our third year of living together, you asked me to marry you. I remember that because you came home after a night of bowling with your friends at work sloppy drunk, falling onto the couch yelling my name asking me to marry you. I said yes, but by morning you didn't remember a thing. I was so hurt, I just didn't come home at all for 2 weeks. I took Malachi and we stayed at my mom's house. Again, she thought I was crazy and warned me to go back. She said, "Girl, you are messing up! What kind of man will help you raise a child that is not his own? A GOOD ONE that's what! So you better go and make things right before he got some other woman laying in your bed and eating up them groceries he bringing home!" She was right! I didn't want no other woman living in my home, so I came back. That following year, you and I got married at the court house.
I thought things would improve when we got married. I thought that once you knew we were together forever that you wouldn't get jealous anymore because, as I had gotten older, I realized that your jealousy was not fun anymore, but very painful and often came with bruises. But I justified it by saying you only hit me when you were drunk. When you were sober, you were great! But after we had gotten married, you began to drink more and more. Every time you would come home from a night out, you would swear up and down that I was cheating on you. We would argue so much that the neighbors would call the cops. But they would just make you leave until you sobered up. You would just come right back, and I would take you back because I loved you and I thought I couldn't do any better.
For a while things had become mellow. There was no fighting, but there was no communication either. I had gotten to the point where I just couldn't talk to you or be around you anymore. So I decided to leave you. After you got home from work, I sat you down and told you why I was unhappy and that I needed my space and some time to think if I really want to be married. I remember because you were sober. You agreed, so I grabbed Malachi and went to a friend's house instead of going to my mother's house because she always gave me bad advice when dealing with you. I was tired of being beaten and abused. I just wanted out! I called my mother to tell her where I would be just in case she needed me. I never should have told her anything because I guess you called her looking for me in your drunken state and she told you where I was. You showed up at the front door with your father's hunting rifle he gave you when you were 10, Screaming! You shot the lock of the front door, and before I knew anything, I was lying in a pool of my own blood. Gasping. Gurgling. Struggling to breathe! As I lay dying, I hear another shot, I turn, and I see Malachi running toward me! Crying! "Moooommmmmmaaaaa!!!!" I faintly hear a thud, and see your lifeless body hit the hardwood floor! Everything is getting dark. Malachi's screams becomes faint as if fading into the background. All I can think about as I lay here dying is, Damn. I never should have listened to my Mama!
