Pack Up the Moon

by Kristan Higgins

get busy living, or get busy dying.

In love wasn’t a phrase. It was how they lived, wrapped in the warm, soft blanket of mutual adoration,

Staying in the moment was better than wringing hands about the future.

When you’re living with a ticking clock, you can’t be a loser. You can’t think about what you won’t get to see, what you’ll never have. Ain’t no one got time for that.

he’d been a loner, sure, but it had been by choice. Now, it felt like the sun had fallen out of the sky, and the world was a wasteland of gray.

Even when it felt like your heart was being pulled out of your chest, still beating. Even when you had to cough and gasp and would need to up the airflow on your oxygen. Their tears soaked into each other’s hair, skin, clothes. But it was okay. Everyone died.

the acceptance of her absence was worse than the forgetting of her death.

He would’ve walked a mile barefoot on broken glass just to get her a napkin.

The sadness shouldn’t cancel out what had been so bright and full and beautiful. Just because the cherry blossoms would fall didn’t mean you should mourn them on the tree.

Once you’d had a love like that, it would be futile to try to replicate it. Everything else would be a hollow imitation.

She’d put her head in his lap, maybe, and he would feel real again. Not this fake version of himself, the ghost of Lauren’s husband. But once, he had been Lauren’s husband. He was proud of that. The two feelings would have to make peace.

It’s okay to show how you feel, Lauren had told him on more than one occasion, especially after her diagnosis. You’ll be surprised at how kind most people are.

But I know what I believe: I believe in you and me. Forever.

Don’t let me be your life’s tragedy. Let me be one of the best things that ever happened. One of the many best things that ever happened to you. Let our time together be a beautiful, happy time in your life that came to an end, but led to more happiness, more love.

Don’t pant. Don’t fight. Don’t scare him. Die gently.

Her poor body. It had worked so hard. It had done so well. She’s proud of it, grateful to it for putting up with all that it had.

That body deserves to rest now. Her new self is strong and warm. There’s no pain, no weight, no fatigue, no chest pain.

though her old body is done, and her old self is gone, her true self would never leave him.