Having returned to something approaching normality, I am pleased to bring you a new InMon story, based on the excellent prompts from Bekindrewrite. If you head over there, you’ll find a handful of great other stories based on either the phrase I used as my title and inspiration, or various other words and phrases. I hope you enjoy my story. As ever, I am open to comments and critique, so please do leave your thoughts.
End of Forever
We were so different, Patrick and I. He roared into love liked a tsunami, casting aside every obstacle, every question, every other possibility except that we would be together for all time. He never professed any religion, nor any concrete ideas about what happens after death, but he was certain that love was everlasting, and that we would be together for eternity.
I admired his passion all the more, because I had none. My love was a calm emotion: waves washing gently over a shore, unstoppable as a whole, but yielding on a smaller scale to piers and groynes and to the big problems that we encountered in those early days. And I believe in heaven, but not as a family reunion; my vows were only until death us do part.
And so I bury him with more finality than he would have done me. I am free to love again. I am free to find another man who will sweep me off my feet with his passion and vigour. I am free to listen to a new promise of happy ever after, of eternal devotion, of love forever.
But there is nothing after the end of forever. There is only darkness and silence. A bed that is too big for one person and a table with too many chairs. After the end of forever, nothing and never begin, and I am there, hoping I am wrong about heaven.
elmowrites 
Wow. I love this. The contrast she draws between them is instantly arresting, and the whole thing just feels so honest, so real. Fantastic.
Thanks Steph – I don’t really know where it all came from, but I had a bit of a lump in my throat as I wrote that first part, so the last bit seemed the only place to go
How sad, Jen! This reminds me that if I didn’t believe in heaven, my life would be less and it also reminds me to love those I have here, now, with all my heart. You really made your characters’ feeling come alive.
As I said to Steph, I had a lump in my throat writing it, I’m glad that came across, Janet. I think whatever your view of heaven, that’s a good plan for the here and now – and just as we all have our own heavens, we all have our own ways of loving with all our hearts.
You showed the different type of loving well in this, Jen. Some people are more ebullient or effusive while others are more gentle. Neither way is bad, but we do have to realize that our way may not be the preferred way of the person we love. 🙂