“Teach me how to fall,” she asked.

“Why do you want to fall, rather you learn how to ride,” he replied, dumbfounded. All she did next was give him a steady look and shake her head no. That day she fell numbers of time’s, never once did she cry, and she didn’t dare ask to learn how to ride.

The next day she rode best.

“Teach me how to get embarrassed,” she asked the day of the school dance.

“You don’t want that, you would rather learn how to be not embarrassed,” he said surprised again.

Again she just shook her head no. That day she was the center of the rumors. Never once did her cheeks go red, and she wouldn’t try to ask how to not get embarrassed.

The next year she was prom Queen.

“Teach me how to cry,” she asked the day of their wedding.

“Don’t be sad, don’t cry try to smile.” He replied, thunderstruck.

As always, she shook her head no and just stared. On their wedding day she was the crying bride, the one whose eyes were red.

That day, even though all those things, she was the most beautiful, and glad.

She would ask to learn the opposite. When she was in her hospital bed she looked up into the eye’s of her 73 year old husband and whispered with her dying breath, “Teach me how to die,”

His reply, though there was no one left to hear, was, “Why, you want to know how to live not die.”

A few days later, her husband had seen a little girl asking to learn how to ride.


He said to the one who was teaching her, “Teach her how to fall,”