Come, gentle night, – come, loving black brow’d night,
Give me my Romeo; and when he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of Heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.

William Shakespeare

She sits quietly at his bedside.  White coats breeze in and out, never acknowledging her presence.  She sits in silence.  Nurses rush in and out, always busy, hands in constant motion.  Jaded words are spoken.  Another pregnant teenager, sitting at the bedside of her brain dead boyfriend.  Wrong place, wrong time, probably deserved.  His choice.  A bullet with his name on it, destined to shatter his skull and end his life.  But today, he is alive, and she is silent at his side.  Holding his hand, whispering in his ear.  The constant motion and activity and harshness of the day slowly fades into night.

It is at night that the world sleeps and heals.  The quiet of the darkness awakens the quiet of the mind.  She confides to the nurse willing to listen.  It is a gift.    She speaks of a life of isolation and pain, and loneliness.  She has been alone for so long.  He saved her.  Saved her from drugs and gangs and death.  Together they survived.  They made a life together, and together they made a life.  It is the one true love of her life.  Understanding, Undeniable and Unconditional.  She will lose him, she knows.  But not tonight.

RR