My wife has died more than I can count

My wife, Sarah, and I have been married for 20 years, and we are each other’s soulmates. She is the kindest, gentlest, most caring person I’ve ever met. I couldn’t ask for a better partner in life. We met at a party in college and have been inseparable ever since. I can’t imagine life without her, and that’s why I’m so terrified.<br><br>Sarah is immortal. No, I’m not joking. Immortal. I swear on my own life that she is. I’ve seen her die with my own two eyes. I’ve held her dead body. I’ve adapted to her bizarre condition, but I have always been waiting for the other shoe to drop.<br><br>Sarah was a little more than a year older than me, born on May 6, 1985, and I was born on June 15, 1986. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she looks my age. There are no wrinkles, no gray hairs, no age spots. Not even a freckle. She still has that 20-year-old energy, and our sex life can attest to that. She’s lived 34 years and doesn’t look a day over 20. We have been waiting to see how she ages for a quarter-of-a-century now.<br><br>The first time she died was in a car accident three months after my 13th birthday. We were driving down an icy road, and Sarah was behind the wheel. She lost control of the car, and we slid into a tree. I got whiplash, and Sarah was pronounced dead at the scene. The impact had been so bad that it severed her brain stem. I was given custody on my 18th birthday and have been taking care of her since.<br><br>I’ve seen her die countless times since the car accident. I’ve seen her choke to death on a grape. I’ve watched cancer take its toll on her. She’s been burned to a crisp in a house fire. She’s drowned, been shot, stabbed, strangled, beaten to death, and even overdosed accidentally. I’ve held her lifeless body dozens of times.<br><br>Twenty years ago, I had given up hope. I had resigned myself to the fact that I’d never be able to spend the rest of my life with her. I had accepted that she was a ghost, a phantom, a fleeting glimpse of the woman I fell in love with. Every time she died, a part of me died with her. I would have started counting on my fingers and toes if I had that many limbs. I lost count of how many times she has died a long, long time ago.<br><br>I wasn’t expecting to see her again after the last time she died. That incident was particularly bad. She fell off a cliff while we were hiking. She died on impact. I held her dead body and sobbed for hours until someone found us.<br><br>I had given up the will to live. She was gone, and I would never see her again. I felt like killing myself. I’ve done that once before, but I shot myself in the chest and just ended up with a collapsed lung. I didn’t want to risk that happening again. Instead, I spent every moment at the hospital where they had put her remains. I sat in the hospital bed and held her body. When they moved her to a morgue, I followed. When they moved her to the funeral home, I followed. The funeral director offered to let me hold her body one last time before they cremated her.<br><br>As I held her lifeless body in my arms, she gasped for air. I shrieked in terror and dropped her onto the metal table. She sat up and rubbed her head. She looked around confused. Eventually, she looked at me and smiled.<br><br>“Hey,” she said. “What’s up?”<br><br>“Sarah,” I said, stunned. “You’re back.”<br><br>There was a long pause. “What?”<br><br>“You’re back,” I said. “You were... dead.”<br><br>We sat there in stunned silence for a few minutes. Every time she had died before, she started fresh as if she had no recollection of her previous incarnations. This time was different. The look on her face told me that she remembered something.<br><br>“Sarah?” I said, trying to confirm my suspicion. “What’s your name?”<br><br>“Sarah Elizabeth HunterGriffin.”<br><br>“HunterGriffin?”<br><br>“I got married,” she said.<br><br>“When?”<br><br>“When I was 19.”<br><br>“Who?”<br><br>“You.”<br><br>Sarah remembered me. I had been dreaming of that moment my entire life, and now it had finally happened. But there was something different about her, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.<br><br>But that’s not the problem. I don’t mind that she remembers me. In fact, I’m glad she does because it means we can finally grow old together.<br><br>The problem is that she’s still immortal, and there’s no sign that she will ever stop reincarnating.<br><br>But there’s something wrong this time.<br><br>“Sarah?” I said. “How do you feel?”<br><br>She groaned. “I have the worst migraine. What happened?”<br><br>“You fell off a cliff.”<br><br>“Did I break anything?”<br><br>“No,” I said. “You died.”<br><br>Sarah wasn’t acting like herself. She was grumpy and distant, not like her usual bubbly self. She had a scowl on her face, and her voice was laced with venom. She didn’t seem excited to see me. She didn’t seem excited to be alive again. She seemed grumpy, irritable, and hateful. There was something wrong with her.<br><br>“You want to go home?” I asked.<br><br>“Yes. I have a migraine.”<br><br>“Okay,” I said. “I’ll take you home.”<br><br>“Okay.”<br><br>The drive was quiet and tense. There was no banter. No laughter. No talking.<br><br>Sarah stayed in bed for over a week. She said she had a migraine, but I knew that it wasn’t normal. I’ve never seen her complain about pain. When she had cancer, she didn’t complain about the pain. During her first round of chemo, she was joking around and laughing. When she was on her deathbed, she smiled at me and said, “I love you, and I’ll see you again.”<br><br>But this time, she was different. She was bitter and cold. It was just a week ago, but she hadn’t said *I love you* even once.<br><br>Something was horribly wrong.<br><br>I’m not sure what to do. She’s not acting like herself, and I don’t know how to help her. I’ve been waiting forever to spend the rest of my life with her, but now that she’s back, I’m not sure if I still want her. This isn’t the Sarah that I fell in love with. This is a stranger.<br><br>I want my wife back.