“I want to live.”

He whispered quietly, his anxious words pierced the darkness of our bedroom, as we lay snug underneath a heavy fleece sheet.

In my half drunken state of lethargy, between the now and the tomorrow, the twilight and unforgiving sunrise, I paused and struggled to grasp the meaning of his words.

“I want to sleep, but I want to live.” He murmured again.

Despite my struggle to form coherent and comforting words, I pushed forward with a half formed thought, because “...anything you can muster to ease his troubled and anxious mind would be better than silence” I thought to myself.

“...maybe we need to buy a device. You know, a monitor that will sound an alarm when your heart rate reaches an abnormal level, that way it can instantly wake you up...” I managed to stammer out.

Silence.

Seconds passed, and I groggily continued...”...that way you won’t have to be afraid.”

More silence. He must have realized I was losing my struggle against sleep, or perhaps he regretted having shared that intimate thought with me. Either way, he allowed the silence to grow.

With each passing second, I felt more betrayed by this silence and the bubbling darkness. A feeling of helplessness took over and I remember cursing the long and heavy workweek, lack of sleep, and my selfish desire to slip into slumber, to rest.

I can’t remember if I whispered out loud, or silently to myself, before succumbing to the slumber...

“I want you to live too...”