The songs and the poems and the flowers and the pink hearts... they're all symbolic of the romanticism of love. I mean the rougher parts of love, the tooth and nail of it.
It's genuinely hard.
It's difficult to watch someone you care about go through something tough. When their health fails them and despite all the therapists and the medication and the professional teams, in the end you feel like you are the only person keeping them alive simply from the fierceness of your love for them.
It's terrifying to watch them peer over the edge into the void, the chasm calling them in. You tug at their sleeve and lose your cool for a moment even at their lowest ebb because you are simply petrified that this is the end, so close you can breathe it in.
It's hard to watch them suffer. You are helpless against the hopelessness. All-consuming as your love for them may be, you know you are both but a tiny coal in the hurricane. One gust too hard or squall too quenching and the fire fizzles.
It's exhausting to love someone.
Then, without warning, my lady is given back to me from the brink. She looks at me with eyes that are finally focussed and clear, her features are once again full and warm with joy where they had been dull and slack.
I realise I am staring into her eyes and she is actually there.
"Oh!" I exclaim in surprise. I stupidly add "Hello!"
She giggles. She hasn't giggled in weeks.
"Hello!"
My heart dissolves in my chest. I am drowned in relief and grief. I weep like she had died and was resurrected. I pull her to me and hold her tight and whisper to her that I missed her. We kiss like it's our first kiss again.
"Are you back to stay?" I ask, willing myself not to hope too much. "Or is this.... just a visit?"
She smiles weakly and tells me honestly, "I don't know."
Later, she tells me it is as though she had been asleep. I tell her that in truth it was much, much worse than that. Her being asleep all this time would have been easier.
She apologises. I wipe the words away from her lips with my fingertips. I tell her it's not her fault, and that truthfully I don't care, I'm just so happy to have her returned to me.
She holds me and I feel strength in her embrace again.
I empty my tears into her chest until I exhaust myself. She listens and runs her fingers through my hair. The gesture is so gentle and caring and full of everything I had mourned the loss of that I break again and cry a reserve of tears I didn't know I had. She makes pitying noises as she kisses my hot forehead.
Some mornings later we tentatively decide to celebrate her waking up. We spend almost all day with our hands and fingers interlocked, we tell each other we love each other, with forgotten sincerity and intensity. We talk and I spend some time filling in the gaps of the weeks she missed. There are days she has no memory of, conversations that are deleted from history. I slowly and gently bring her up to speed. My patience is lengthened.
The hard part is over for now. Until another storm hits we walk through foggy, dreamy swirls of the easier parts of love, like the end credits of a fantasy film.
I reflect on what I've learnt, and tell myself to try to remember it all: The night's rainfall can be weathered, with strength. I wish myself strength, because this is the part that's worth it:
Waking up.
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