Washed Out to Sea
Valentine’s Day is coming soon. As I walk along the beach, I think about her. I loved her more than I had ever thought it possible to love anyone. She was my soulmate or so I thought. As much as I loved her, though, she loved heroin more. We were in our mid-twenties when we met, both working second jobs at a pizza place after our regular jobs. She was a single mom, I was a guy with a dream. I wanted to own my own home, meet a great lady and raise a family. I thought with her I had it all.
I came to realize she did not have custody of her daughter. I found out she had been in trouble in the past due to drugs. Still, I was falling in love with her. One Valentine’s Day on our North Carolina coastline, I wrote in the sand “Will you marry me?” She cried as she said yes. I just knew our lives together were just beginning.
Within a couple of weeks, though, she started withdrawing from me. I found out she had failed a drug test needed for her to regain custody of her daughter. She began spiraling down again in her heroin addiction. I begged her to get help. She snapped at me. I went back to my own apartment that night. I called her several times but we would just argue and she would hang up.
The next day she did not show up at the pizza place. Concerned, I called to check on her and make sure she was okay. Her sister answered the phone. She told me that my beautiful fiancee had just succumbed to a heroin overdose. The paramedics were still there trying to revive her but it was too late.
I still walk the coastline where I proposed to her. She has been gone four years now. I am okay most of the time except when it comes to special occasions. When I see other couples holding hands, I have to look away. Every Valentine’s Day I write in the sand “Love”. Then I watch it until the water eventually carries it out to sea where my heart still waits for her. I loved her so much but I could not convince her to get help. She loved her heroin more than her daughter and she loved it more than she loved me. Just as the sea washes away the word LOVE I write in the sand, heroin washed away her ability to think and care about what was important in life.
