It was a bright morning: the flowers were blooming and the bright yellow sun was slowly rising on the horizon. She took a deep breath, stretched, and rolled over to look at the other side of the bed. It was empty once again.
Meredith was young, and she could now only see him in her memory: the ring placed gently on her finger, and the orchestral song echoed in the church. She could still remember seeing his smiling face through her delicate veil, tears streaming, as she walked closer to him. Her smile grew with every step. She could still remember the three candles: one for him, one for her, and one in the middle to share their flames. The flame was bright, symbolizing their unity together.
But the flame had been blown out.
It was an unusually beautiful night just over a year ago. The Christmas lights that surrounded their house twinkled in the moonlight, the beautiful carols played, and Meredith had felt little kicks inside her belly. It was joyous. He always loved to decorate the house and spent hours upon hours every year working until he reached perfection. Those nights, he would go into the garage to retrieve arm fulls of Christmas lights.  Whenever he was done, it was luminus: the lights grouped together like a bunch of white roses. He would check each bulb, all of 1200 of them, to ensure that they were all as bright as the morning sun, then climb  the ladder to string them on the side of the house. He had been up there before, but this time, the weather was worse: it was wet; it was slippery. The flame was blown out.
The lights flashed at 100 miles per hour and Meredith sat beside him, trying to look at him through her tears. He will make it. He will make it. There was a lot of blood. The doctor’s told her they did everything they could, but it was too late. She put her hands on her growing belly as she felt empty, trying to do everything in her power to fill the newly created hole in her heart. She couldn’t stand to have the lights on her house anymore, so she took them down. Her house was the obvious darkness in midst of the light that surrounded her.
There was a lot of blood. She called for the flashing lights and they came at 100 miles per hour, only to tell her that there would be no more little kicks. Meredith looked around the hospital she knew too well. It was dark, the dim lights flickering above, not lighting the far corner of the room. She got up from her bed to grab the magazine that lay on a table in the far, dark corner, but could only make it a few steps before she struggle became too much for her to bear. Beaten, alone, and weak, she had to hold on to the wall to stay upright.
When she returned home the next day, she tripped over a snow-covered stepping stone up to the house. He had laid those stepping stones only a few months ago. Against the doctor’s advice, she went right to work. She pushed, and pulled, and arranged her house in hopes of creating some change, some newness that wouldn’t remind her of who she used to be, who she used to have. But it still looked the same. The same light gray walls that he painted, the same couch that they picked out together, and the same lamp on the table that he had gotten her when they first moved in together. It didn’t work now. She would have to change the lightbulb later. Now was not the time. She went upstairs, got into bed, and turned off the light.
It was a bright morning: the flowers were blooming, the birds were singing, and the bright yellow sun was slowly rising on the horizon. She took a deep breath, stretched, and turned on the bright lights.