Shooting Stars Don't Say Goodbye

by Marcos, J. A.

  - You will get out of this, my love. - I spoke softly as tears streamed down my face abruptly, like a waterfall. - We still have a lot to live, I love you. I can’t live without you.

  I don’t know if he was listening. Based on his situation, he probably wasn’t. But I had to say that, I had to get that off my chest. I had the need to tell him how much I loved him and how much I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. He was my life, he taught me what it was to be happy. I always had this kind of rude way, but he always knew how to tame me, how to charm me, how to make me fall in love. Each day was like the first with him because he made me feel like our love was restarting every day.

  I didn’t want to lose him. I didn’t accept to lose him. This couldn’t happen, it's not fair. The universe can’t be that bad, God had to hear my prayers. I never was the prayer kind, never the kind who makes requests or harass with meaningless prayers. I didn’t even ask Him to give me the vision, but now for the first time, after so many years of existence, I had a request to make. I had something I wanted to ask from the bottom of my heart. I wanted Matt. I didn’t want God to take him away from me.

  - Please, God. Don’t take him away from me. Stay with me, stay with me. Don’t leave me, please. Be strong. I know you're strong. I still owe you a song. Remember? You can’t go before I pay you my debt.

  My crying grew stronger, becoming stronger. I had no control over my actions. That hospital smell was making me ill. It was not a natural aroma, smelled like ending, smelled like death. Smell of farewell.

  - I love you! - I said, tears streaming.

  My heart beat stronger. So fast to the point of being close to get out of my mouth. I felt something different. Something new. I felt Mat’s finger moving slightly as my hand was holding his hand. I wiped my face quickly in the hope that God had heard my prayers. I was taken by a sudden hope.

  His finger moved again. It was something subtle, very subtle, but it moved. I felt. It was not my imagination, I was not crazy. He had reacted. He had heard me.

  Soon an annoying noise took the room. It seemed to come from machines that were connected to him for measure his heart rate.

  Oh my God. His heartbeat. That couldn’t be true, it couldn’t. It was a boring, annoying whistle. I felt someone break into the room and ordered for someone to take me out of there.

  - Defibrillator, urgent! - Someone screamed, as I felt someone else grabbing my shoulder and pulling me out of the room.

  Mat was dying. That was a farewell gesture. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t live without him. He was my life, my light, my sense of living. I couldn’t believe it, but my worst nightmare was confirmed. I was losing the man of my life.

  CHAPTER 23

  Three weeks have passed since that day. My life was never the same again. I can ‘t work, go anywhere. I asked to be away from work and now l think about Matt all the time. I always was strong, but I ended up discovering that lately he was my strength. When I found myself without Mat on my side I realized that something was missing in my life that made it have a direction.

  When that happened to Mat, it was the worst moment of my life. All of my memories, joys, memories, passed in front of my eyes quickly, like a movie.

  After the doctors pulled me out of the room I was received by Matt’s mother, who hugged me and cried with me. Inside the doctors tried to revive him. We listened from the hallway to the attempts to make him to come back to life. The machine kept giving that single whistle, showing that there was not any sign that Matt was with us. Until suddenly a beep rang again and our eyes filled with hope.

  - We did it! - Said a doctor, minutes later, meeting us in the hallway. - That was close! Everything was almost lost, but your boy is strong, he has the will to live. We managed to get back to life. Now we have to wait. The next 24 hours are crucial.

  I returned home with a little more hope. I believed in the rehabilitation of Mat after that scare. As the doctor said, he was strong, he wanted to live. I believe he felt my presence. But the problem now was how to deal with this expectation. As the days went by Mat’s situation was remaining the same, completely stable. He didn’t get out of a coma, and when it began to extend we were getting increasingly concerned. The doctor gave no great hope about how long he could stay in that situation.

  - Well - he started saying on one of our visits to the hospital - I can’t lie to you. Mathew is in a coma, and in these circumstances it can take days, months or even years. We cannot predict how long it will take for him to recover. We just have to continue to work and hope that he will recover.

  But time was passing, passing and passing. Three weeks were gone and he remained the same. Without any reaction. Without moving, without blinking, without waking. As much as I thought I could get used to this situation because I knew he was still alive, I found myself stuck with him in a way that I could not continue with my life. And every time I closed my eyes and tried to sleep the only thing that came to my mind was that he was alone in that hospital room. If it was otherwise he would never leave me alone.

  I started to practically live in the hospital. I was there every day. Morning, afternoon and evening. Every day I sought a new source of hope. In a moment it was that dry rose inside of one of my agendas, remembering the first surprise he made me. In another, it was that letter in Braille. His guitar was now with me, and I caught myself from time to time strumming a few notes in my lonely room, in the hope that he walked in the door with some ridiculous joke or an awkward comment about the position of the guitar on my lap.

  Mathew has always surprised me, and even after the accident, he would still surprise me, giving me even more strength and showing that our love had to be strong enough to go through all this.

  That night I lay in my bed when Mat’s sister knocked on my bedroom door. In recent times we were very united, we were always together at the hospital, we talked for hours. We would go out together. Our world had been restricted to that united us. Caroline had even claimed a few days ago that I was not paying so much attention to her. It had been two weeks since we've seen each other properly, our schedules were always incompatible.

  - May I come in?

  - Of course, Sue - I replied sitting up in bed. That's how I called her lately. We were closer than ever.

  - I found something in Mat’s things, and I thought it should be for you.

  My heart raced in a way it hadn’t raced for a long time. Since Mat’s accident I didn’t live, I only existed. Nothing ever happened that could put a bit of adrenaline in my body, and at that moment I realized that this could be a way to reset that adrenaline Mat always injected in me. His surprises always made me excited, no matter how simple they were. I urgently need to know what it was.

  - What is it, Sue? - I asked, extremely curious.

  - It was with a package and a note in Braille. It was in his room since the accident, but my mother didn’t think much about not knowing what it is. I've never been into his stuffs, but today I felt so nostalgic of our conversations that I went to his room to feel a little closer.

  - And what did you find?

  - Our mother had placed it on the nightstand. She thought it was something he earned, but not had time to open, and thought it was best to leave it there so when he came home he could see what it was. So soon I realized that this was something he would give you, maybe even tonight.

  Sue approached me and placed a small box in my hands. It should have no more than 30 cm in diameter and 5 cm tall. It was something that seemed too delicate based on the fragile package.

  - I didn’t open, and I was also unable to identify what was written on the note. I don’t understand Braille. - She smiled.

  - I imagine - I replied.

  - I just realized that this was what he did on those mornings when he left without saying where he was going. He was doing lessons in Braille to be able to make these notes for you. I found some papers of enrollment in a course at the Association for the Blind of the city, with timetables and d
isciplines that he would study.

  I never imagined that Matt would have done that. Enrolling in the course of disabled just to learn Braille? He always surprised me, and that was what I loved about him. I have not figured out how he could make those notes, so far, I thought he was paying someone to do the translation, if I can say like this.

  - Did you know he was doing this course?

  - No. He didn’t tell me anything.

  - Well, he's full of surprises, isn’t he? And I feel that he will not like to know that I blew it. - She told me holding my hand, sitting on the bed beside me. - It is our secret. When he left the hospital doesn’t tell him anything, okay?

  We all spoke about him that way. Even three weeks before and he didn’t have any significant progress in the framework we were dealing with the situation as something temporary, preparing for the day he would wake up and go back to our arms. It was almost like the male version of Sleeping Beauty. One day I saw myself in those thoughts back when I said he was my David and I was his Snow White, the difference was that this time he was in a deep sleep, the same happened in an episode of "Once Upon a Time ". I even thought it was a sign that we were soul mates, that with a kiss of love I could wake him, just as happened with my favorite couple in love in the world of the series, and I won’t deny that in one of my visits to the hospital I kissed him gently, quietly, waiting for him to wake up as it happened in fairy tales. Nothing happened. I waited for a few minutes, but everything remained exactly the same way. He remained unconscious, in a coma.

  - Sure, Sue - I replied with a tear running down my face. - It is our secret.

  - Then I'll leave and I come back tomorrow for us to go there to see him. - She said getting up from bed. - I'll leave you alone. Whatever it is that gift, it's yours, and I think you have every right to open it alone.

  - Thank you! - I just said. Hugging it and sighing with another surprise from my Matt. The note was on my hands, and I prepared to run my fingers through it and find out what the great love of my life had prepared for me.

  I spent some time lying down, crying and just cuddling the small package. The pain of not having him with me was so big that devoured me inside, tore me apart. Only those who are or have been in a situation like that can understand what I'm talking about. Imagine being in the happiest moment of your life and suddenly an earthquake happens and opens up the floor. Now imagine that instead of you being swallowed by the earth, it takes away the person you love the most and leaves you alone, with nothing to catch on or sustain. This was more or less my feeling. The difference is that when I was about to fall into despair always appeared a glimmer of hope in which I could sustain me and keep me standing. Life is a funny thing, it just happens, brings positive and negative surprises, changes your destiny upside down and makes you think about everything that you have lived and haven’t live.

  I ran my fingers through the piece of paper where for many people might seem insignificant, but to me brought a giant bag of love and hope. Every passage that I read, the tears were streaming down my face.

  My troublemaker,

  I know that this miniature letter may seem meaningless, but I wanted to register on this piece of paper everything that I words, supposedly, I couldn’t tell you.

  You appeared when I needed a light on my path, and even if you don’t understand what I'm talking about I just want you to know that being with you makes me feel like the happiest man in the world.

  I'm prepared to face barriers, fears and bump into any challenge. I am also ready to help you overcome your challenges, and when you feel you have no one to help you, be sure that I'll be there to hold your hand and walk with you. I hope you enjoy what I have prepared.

  I love you. Forever.

  CHAPTER 24

  I couldn’t contain my tears after that note. My heart was filled with even more certainty that our story was not over. "I love you. Forever", he said. That should mean something. It should be a sign that he would always be with me, and I'm not talking about spirituality. I'm not using the hypothesis that he will go away from this world and we’ll meet beyond life. This is beautiful in films, in books, in novels, but in real life is not how things happen, is not the way things work. No one is prepared to lose the person you want to spend the rest of your life, and when I say “rest of your life” I’m using the literal meaning of the word.

  I still want to sit next to Mat in a rocking chair, being an old couple, feeling the sea breeze while our grandchildren play in the sand of the beach, on a summer afternoon. I still want to stand in the line at the bank beside him, we both complaining about the delay in priority seating, priority that is never there. I still want to travel, see the world, enjoy every minute of our lives together. We still have plenty to live, plenty to enjoy. I don’t accept losing him just now, when he began to show everything that life has to offer me.

  I clung to that note with teeth and nails, and after a few moments of thought and tears, I began to open the package that was on my hands. I tore open the package in a matter of seconds and then I realized I was touching something with a smooth surface. I fumbled trying to figure out what it would be, until I realized that it was a DVD packaging. I found the place where it opened and inside there was a piece of paper.

  Put in the CD player. Listen.

  It was an instruction. He had shown me what to do. It wasn’t a DVD, it was a CD. And now I was dying to find out what it was.

  I ran to the computer and turned it on. The computer took a while to start. The operating system it was a bit slow, it took a century to start and I just knew he was actually starting because of that little noise it made when the initial screen gave some sign of life.

  My father had installed some applications that helped me to use it.

  Once I realized that it had started I went to the door and locked it. It was an intimate moment. It was a moment of mine. Whatever there was on that CD I wanted to listen to it alone. I imagined it could be a selection of our songs, those that we had in common, and if listened to them at that moment, it would make me cry. Cry a lot. It could also be one of the humorous pranks of Matthew. He was a master at keeping the mood and get a way to make me smile. In any event, whatever there was on that CD, it would move me anyway. Something was done by him, for me. I was going to cry, I was sure.

  As I put the CD I heard it spinning into the computer. It's not that my senses were just very well established, but is that my PC was really bad, and everything in it made a lot of noise.

  I sat up and waited. Some time passed and then something began to play.

  There was no known band. None of our songs in common. Only a guitar played, lonely, and I recognized that sound from somewhere. It was something I had heard some time ago, and as in a sudden knock on my mind a voice began to sing. A voice that I not only knew, a voice that made me freeze. IT WAS MY VOICE.

  That was the music he had taken me to sing in the studio of his friend when we were on vacation, the music he had done for me and I even got to sing the end.

  As I thought about what was happening, my voice continued to play inside the computer. And I wanted to know how far it would go, after all, I hadn’t been able to sing it all. In the middle of the lyric I stopped to cry. I just closed my eyes and heard me singing, trying to understand what message he wanted to pass me.

  For a long time I lived without finding

  Any real reason to live

  I took a path, without knowing where it led.

  I ventured myself without thinking, just took the risk.

  I know that these clouds have reason to pass

  That up in heaven a new star will shine

  And like me, you'll realize.

  I’m a star looking for you

  For you

  I waited for what was coming now. I remembered clearly that at that time I had begun to cry, and the music was not finished. But to my surprise the guitar continued to play, only the guitar, and then another voice gave the music procedure. A magical voice,
beautiful, perfect. A voice that made me feel going to heaven. It wasn’t the voice of a professional singer, wasn’t the voice of a music contest winner, those we see on TV, but it was in tune, beautiful, a passionate voice. It was his voice, Mat had resisted and sung for me.

  I couldn’t believe that he had prepared this surprise for me. He had managed to confront one of his blocks, to sing to someone who was not himself, and more beautiful than that note was to hear those lyrics in his voice.

  For a long time, I didn’t know what to think

  No place in the world to fit me

  Through the e universe, I traveled alone

  I went through a million comets

  For stars, different planets, I ventured myself

  All this time, I always wanted to find myself

  Like a star without knowing where to get

  Your presence attracted me without realizing

  I was taken by your essence

  Browsing among the planets, I ventured myself

  You won me, seduced me and now

  Your love has me

  Now I have a reason to live

  Don’t be afraid, I will never leave you

  You

  Come be mine

  Shooting stars don’t say goodbye

  Come be mine

  Shooting stars don’t say goodbye

  The sound of the guitar continued for some time, while the melody of his voice made me cry even more. He was my shooting star. I had already said that at some moment. He fell out of anything in my life, had been in other places, other cities, other universes, to enter in the context of the song, but it was in my way he fell. It was in my life that he fell. I couldn’t lose him. I wouldn’t accept losing him. I put the song to repeat a few more times and continued to cry every time I heard his voice singing to me. He sang to me.