Sad Short Story

Sad Short Story

Short Story
Additional scene to ‘Bay of Angels’


Their tiny hands gripped mine as we walked slowly through the narrow and brightly lit hallway of the hospital. As they pushed past one another into the cold lift, I couldn’t bare to dampen their innocent smiles with the harsh truth of our visits.

The journey up to the fourth floor seemed almost routine, yet each visit becoming more and more of a reality. It had already been 3 months since the shocking diagnosis, but the time had gone past in the blink of an eye, and was soon to come to a frightening halt.

I lent down to give her pale face a kiss and stared into her distant and sunken eyes. With our two boys happily sprawled out either side of their mother, I witnessed a tear fall. A tear with such emotion it sent a shiver down my spine. A tear in which I have a million of, held back by the tough nature of masculinity.

I placed a hand upon her shoulder which was now frail and weak, and I let my mind retrace our last 10 years of marriage, which would soon end earlier than hoped. The first two seemed so long ago. These two years, prior to children, meant the house was silent yet filled to the roof with young love. When we had our first child Scott, our lives stepped up to the dramatic change of parenthood. The bond between Scott and his mother was incredible, and looking at the two together now, that bond in still present. Three years after our first, Grace fell pregnant with Jake. The same bond between mother and son was created and Jake mirrored the sweet and innocent smile of his older brother. The thought of these boys without their mother puts an unbearable lump in my throat.

As the four of us are seated in the hospital room as one, it became apparent that this could very well be the last time the four of us are together. I remembered all the evenings I would arrive home from work to an immaculate house and the smell of a seasoned roast cooking. I would be greeted by two small bodies...

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