He knew shortly after marriage his wife needed time alone, so being a good husband, he would give her the space she seemed to want and need. Sometimes this would last for days, and suddenly, she would come back to life as if nothing had happened. But as she got older, the time away was longer, with the good times coming less and less. He asked her one time if she was alright are needed him to do anything, but she just laughed it off as her problem alone.

One night he came into the room, and she was crying, and he asked if she was alright. Did she need him, or did she want more time alone? He said the following year was outstanding, and she was better than she had been since they were married. She had to go to the doctor for some woman problems, and they discovered some cancer, which was the late stage. She decided she didn’t want surgery because the chances were terrible for her. Her time was two or more years if the pills could keep cancer from growing.

The time alone now was daily and complete, he tried talking, but she had fallen deep into her mind. Coming home from work, he tried everything, but nothing worked. One night he left his job early; he had just such a bad feeling deep inside he knew before he opened the door that his wife was gone. Walking into the bedroom, he saw her lying in a dead cold bed.

The suicide note: My husband, my time trapped inside my brain, was screaming for you to save me, but you stayed away; why? I was hoping for a man on a white horse, but you cared not and stayed away. My time away from you was pure hell, and I needed you, so where were you? Didn’t you watch it? He tells me it was two pages of her needing him AS he let her have time alone.

The other day talking to an older man in Gulfport, telling him I had been married 53 years. He tells me his wife of twenty-five years committed suicide twenty-six years ago. If she was still alive, he claims he would have outdone me. The conversation moved unto his wife’s death, and it was chilling.

With a tear in his eye and an expression of guilt, you could tell he was disappointed in himself for not trying to break the silence. He says I thought I was doing the right thing; I was giving her space and time. I had no idea that she was looking for a hero. His love for her was never-ending, for he never dated or married since she was gone, but he told me how lucky I was to have a wife for 53 years and never to let her be lonely.

As he walked out the cafe door I felt a moment of guilt for my own wife that I knew I wasn’t alway the best of man. I wondered in her great times of need if I was indeed the man I should be. I doubted myself, for we truly don’t know, I felt the guilt of the old man.

Jorge Luis Borges

“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”