feeling a bit better...

thanks for all your well wishes yesterday. I feel a bit better today. managed to go all day without throwing up which was nice. now started on a process of elimination to find out what is causing all this hassle.anyway, enough of my whinging.the tidy up continues apace and here is another little offering from under the depths of the cobwebs in my virtual attic.its angst angst angst all the way in this one. in fact it requires a death warning.(shows how old it is as I haven't killed any of my characters off for what seems like agessss...am I losing my touch I wonder?)it was originally written for a friend and inspired after hearing the song by Loretta McKinnett.As always my disclaimer applies. Please check my user profile if you are unsure what it is.Dante's Prayer 'Cast your eyes on the ocean,cast your soul to the sea,when dark nights seems endless,please remember me.' This isn't how it was meant to end. Me standing on a cliff at midnight, the swollen full moon hanging low and clear in the sky. A small plastic urn clutched tightly to my chest.You always knew that I would do anything for you, I guess that's why you choose me to carry out your final wishes.I never even knew you were ill. None of us did. You kept it hidden so well. Dark glasses in interviews, make up on stage.It wasn't until you collapsed on the set of a video shoot that there was any indication that something was wrong and by then it was too late.If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget that flight out to see you, the longest twelve hours of my life. The loneliest too.All the time just praying that I would make it in time.And I did…just.I made in time to look for one last time into your eyes, so ravaged by your illness yet still burning bright when they alighted on me.No words were needed. You were unable to speak anyway. But since when have we needed words to convey what we are thinking, what we wanted to say?I didn't need words to show how much I was grieving for you. My silence and my tears showed that more than adequately. The same tears that now come silent and unbidden as I gaze out the inky black of the night, hear the crashing of the waves far below. The waves of the ocean that you loved so much.Never one for the sun but give you a full moon and a myriad of stars and you would wax lyrical until the sunrise stole them away from you.'I want to see the ocean one last time.' You managed to scrawl on the notepad you used for communicating. Your mother sighed, knowing that it was impossible but I knew what you meant and simply nodded.Others were quick to point out the injustice of it being your voicebox that was so affected the worse but to me the injustice was that you were being taken from us at all. I would have gladly given you my vocal chords if it meant that you would have been here beside me tonight. I would have happily lived the rest of my days in silence if it would have meant that I was able to spend the rest of my days with you.I'm done with regrets, the 'what ifs' and the 'maybes.' The 'if-only-I-had-told-you-sooners' you knew, at the end you knew and that was all that mattered.My tears aren't tears of sorrow, they are tears of joy. Joy that I can perform this one last act of friendship for you, of love. Not a love that anyone could define and put in a box. No, what we had, have, the bond that binds us goes beyond definitions, deeper.Sighing I remove the lid of the urn, reach inside, let the contents run through my fingers. Morbid you say? Nah, this is your hair, your eyes, your skin, your body but not you. Not your soul that's somewhere else now, somewhere happy, somewhere peaceful, somewhere where it is at rest and it is also here inside of me, in my heart, in my every waking thought. It always has been and always will be.Taking a handful I draw my arm back and fling the ashes as far out to sea as I can manage. The night breeze picking them up and carrying them along with it. Out over the cliff, out over the sea.I repeat the process several times, each time watching as you are carried this way and that, becoming part of the atmosphere, the air, the night.'I'll always be here.' You wrote, pointing to my heart and I knew that if you could speak you would be doing your lamest E.T. impression. 'and I here,' I said touching your own frail body, placing my hand on your chest, feeling your weak heartbeat through the thin material of your 'Star Wars' PJs. You just smiled. 'always.'Then you gave a small sigh, inaudible but felt, and an alarm sounded on one of the many monitors they had you hooked up to.I would have looked after you, cared for you if only you had told me, let me, but in the end all I could do was bend over, place a gentle kiss on your forehead and shake my head at the nurses as they came rushing in. 'He's DNR.'Smiling I turn the now empty urn upside down, half wishing that I had kept just a trace of you back but why would I need to do that?I only have to look up at the moon, cast my eyes upon the ocean and there you'll be.There'll you always be and one day I'll be there too with you and we can pick up where we left off, brothers, friends and who knows maybe even lovers.