“There’s no easy way to say this,” Officer Keigle said softly. “Are you certain you wouldn’t rather be sitting?”

“I’m fine,” I told them.

They told me she was crossing the street, she had the right of way. A bus, lost control and struck her. It dragged her about 30 feet underneath the cab. Her wedding dress was caught in something called a chasse. I was not sure what the hell that was but I was certain it couldn’t be good because I knew she would have been clutching onto that dress.

I collapsed onto the couch, which was luckily behind me or I probably have fallen to the floor. I shook my head in disbelief.

“She’s just shopping,” I said to them.

They told me I had to go down to the morgue to identify her. So they drove me and escorted me through the building. I went and looked into her beautiful face. They had cleaned her face so there was nothing on it. No make up nothing from the bus, just nothing. Her face was probably the only part of her that hadn’t been mangled, I was told. It wasn’t a pretty sight. So they kept her covered with a blanket.

The funeral came, and everyone we knew showed up. All of her friends, my friends, family. Everyone was stunned. I was numb. Over and over I wished it had have been me instead of her. The world was missing out on a wonderful woman who could make you smile without even trying. Just spending time with her made you feel as if you were the most important person in the world.

Everyone gave their condolences as I stood by the casket for the wake. I couldn’t bear to leave her side, as if every moment I was there would be the last. My hands slid across the cold mohogany and my eyes filled with tears. Each second felt like an eternity.

Everyone filtered out slowly until I was left there alone. That was when I broke down completely. My hands shook as I held my head and cried. The light from my life was gone and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to fix it.

Finally I was escorted from the room by one of the directors, at least I thought it was one of them. I barely remember much after leaving. It was too much of a blur.

I went through the next few weeks in a daze, sometimes I would wake and expect to hear her laughter coming from the kitchen. Or when I came home from work and left my shoes on, I’d wait for her to yell at me, laughing, to take my feet off the coffee table, which I’d automatically do.

I loved her with everything that was inside me. Her laugh, her smile, the way she made me feel alive when it could have been the worst day of my life. This was probably the worst thing that I could go through but I still felt her love for me.