“He had a way of making me smile each time he walked in the room” See admitted to a room full of strangers and a few familiar faces. She had never told anyone this before, but she felt that it was finally okay to say these words aloud. She was unafraid of how Simon had made her feel, she was unafraid of what everyone would think or say because none of it mattered anymore.
“Even if I was in the foulest of moods, one smile from him and I instantly felt better,” She continued her voice surprisingly steady. Paula kept the fact that his smile could make her forget even the hardest, most painful of days to herself. There were some memories she wanted to keep for only her, locked away with the memory of him.
“He-“ She stopped fighting back tears, knowing that she couldn’t cry, not yet. Looking around the room she could tell everyone was doing their best to stay strong, holding in as much emotion as they could. This man, who had been in some of their lives since they could remember was suddenly gone, taken from them with hardly any notice, much too quickly for any of them to fathom. The thought of him being gone from her life left her feeling stranded, unable to go on. Ryan took her hand in his, a somber reassuring smile on his face as he sat beside her.
Paula had to be strong.
She had to be strong for Simon’s mother, who had thought she’d never see her sons go before herself, and for everyone else that had been an intricate part of Simon’s life. This man had been the one person in her life to bring so much and never ask her for anything and now she was giving back, being the backbone of everyone around her even though nobody was expecting her to. She wasn’t doing it for them. She was doing it for Simon.
“He was the greatest man I ever knew” she whispered, tears escaping her chocolaty brown eyes and creating small streams down her cheeks. Her mind was devoid of what to say to Simon’s closest friends and family as flashes of his final days invaded her delicate, over - stimulated mind. She had been the only one there, each day, holding his hands, watching him die. They had talked about everything, things they would’ve never said before. She was so grateful for the time with him, but she knew she’d have given her own life to save him.
But she couldn’t save him. She tried, pleading with God on her knees every night for seven nights, until he took his final breath, his hand in hers.
It had only taken seven days.
Seven days seemed like such a small, short window to lose the man she loved.
She thought he was joking when he asked her to lunch to discuss his will. Sitting across the table from him, she had smiled and laughed it off, thinking she knew he was perfectly fine and up to his old tricks again. Paula now understood how much she’d taken him for granted, thinking he would always be there for her, loving her no matter what until forever. Paula had thought she would always have tomorrow to tell him how she felt, to tell him she was in love with him. She in no way would’ve contemplated that he would leave her alone in the world.
“Paula… I’m dying.” He had said holding her hand over a glass of wine at the Ivy. It seemed wrong for him to tell her like this, but Simon had never been good at doing things like that.
“Simon don’t kid like that! It’s not funny.” She smiled but it wasn’t returned.
It was only then she began to see it all. He looked tired, more than usual, and he begun to lose a lot of weight. All the signs, parties he couldn’t make, meetings he skipped, she should’ve known, she should’ve asked, but it was too late now.
Simon proceeded to tell her he had small cell lung cancer. It felt like a scene out of a nightmare, as he told her of treatments he’d under gone, appointments, experimental treatments he went through alone.
“How long have you known?” She questioned fighting back blossoming tears.
“Over a year now. I put up a good fight, but it’s aggressive Paula, too aggressive for me. I don’t want to fight anymore.”
She could remember weeping, without caring that anyone could see because at that point in time Simon was the only person who mattered. He told her not to cry, but she didn’t listen to him. She never listened to him. He had held her hand, said they would make the best of their time together, the time he had left.
“Paula, it’s okay.”
It seemed like the dumbest thing he could say at that moment in time, but for some reason it was right.
“He was an a-mazin-g person” she choked. Paula looked around the room seeing some of her friends. Terri was sitting beside Simon’s mother, her face covered in tears and red blotches, dabbing at them with tissue. She was taking it hard, but not as hard as Paula, though anyone on the outside looking in would never know. Terri and Simon had broken up merely months before his death, but that didn’t mean Terri loved him any less. Next to Terri were Randy and Erica, both grieving hard as well.
“Simon brought something to everyone’s life, every single person he met. I can remember kids coming from near and far just to talk to him, to receive some kind of advice from him, and they were right to do it. He was nothing short of a miracle worker when it came to his job.”
Simon had been a miracle worker with her as well.
After dinner at the Ivy they had gone to Paula’s to watch a movie, but never quite made it there. After pulling into her driveway Simon asked her to take him to the hospital, his chest moving quickly up and down with is rapid, shallow breaths.
“Paula, I feel like I’m suffocating.” He said gasping for air, his right hand holding his chest. Paula hadn’t ever been as afraid in her entire life as she was when she drove him to the hospital. She wheeled him into the emergency room for once not caring who saw them or about anything else, only him.
After he was stable, she had climbed into bed with him, resting her head on his chest wrapped up in his arms. Sitting there in the quiet, listening to the steady beep of the machines that monitored his health, Simon held her with a closeness that had always been present between them. It was something the cameras could never catch, a feeling they alone knew of and both cherished more than the oxygen that kept them breathing. People would come in and out of the room, talking, making phone calls to the people that needed to know, but nothing affected them. The two of them acted as if none of it was there at all. It was just them, together, as it had always been.
“He never forgot who mattered in his life. His fans were always important to him as was his friends and family. Though he talked mean on t.v. he wasn’t. I think we all knew Simon was just a big pussy cat.”
Though he was weak and feeble he was still Simon.
“Paula, show me your breast.”
“No Simon.” She said swatting him on the arm as she lay next to him in the tiny bed intended for one.
“But, you wouldn’t want me to die without seeing them would you?”
She didn’t find this funny and he knew that, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to let her get all emotional if he could help it. He wanted to see her smile, to see her laugh.
Paula stayed by his side for seven days. She left only to change clothes and such, sleeping beside him every evening until the end. She didn’t sleep very well the first night in the hospital. She would wake up and listen to hear him breathing. After four or five shallow breaths rattled in his chest, she would settle down a little bit and try to sleep. This would become a habit she kept up the entire stay at the hospital.
“Simon taught me many things. Like how to be a strong person no matter what.”
There were times when Simon would sleep for hours on end and she would sit there watching T.V. and chatting with visitors, and then he would be awake for hours talking as if he wasn’t trapped in the hospital. Paula hated him for acting like nothing was wrong, but then she found herself hating him for talking about the inevitable as well. His lawyers were called to make final arrangements, but Paula had no idea what they were, she didn’t have it in her to stay in the room while they were there.
“He taught me to be giving and to actually think of others rather than myself. It surprises even me that Simon Cowell was the one to teach me this, I know, but it’s true.”
The last day everyone was there. From his entire family to his friends, even people Paula had only heard of were sitting in the waiting room for their turn to speak with him. Simon had put Paula in charge of bring in everyone in the order he wished to see them. Paula hated being in the room as he spoke to his dearest friends, but Simon insisted.
One after the other, all of Simon’s co-workers filed into his room all at the same time, gathering around his bed. Paula stood against the wall across from Simon, her back pressed against it, the cool plaster soothing her a bit, watching him speak to them. She looked at them all, Dannii, Sharon, Louis, Piers, and Amanda, and she could tell that Simon cared for each of them very much by the way he looked at them, and the look they returned.
“I don’t want any of you to stop working.” He spoke slowly, stopping to take a few shallow breaths before carrying on. “Piers, you’re to replace me on the X – Factor, Louis on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s the way I want it.”
Nobody argued. They all agreed. Sharon held Louis’s hand, tears streaming down her face. They all were crying, even if it didn’t show on the outside. They were losing their best friend, not their boss. To them, Simon was the one who looked out for them and helped them in every way he could. He always remembered them.
“Sharon… I expected more from you darling.” He whispered a grin breaking out across his face. “Don’t cry love.”
Paula began to cry, though she was unsure she if she had really ever stopped. Simon continued to see every person in the waiting room, until it was only the fabulous four. Ryan, Randy, and Paula gathered around his bed. Simon reached out pulling Paula close to him, forcing her to sit on the bed next to him. Randy let out a chuckle, Ryan a weak smile.
“You never could let her get too far away from you Cowell.”
“For once you’re right Ryan.”
They didn’t speak. There was nothing that any of them really needed to say, it had all been said before. They were the best of friends, even through the worst of times, and nothing would change that.
After everyone had been seen, Simon sent everyone away. He told them that they could all come back tomorrow, but that he needed to be alone now. Everyone turned to leave, but Paula.
“Paula, come to Simey.”
She did just as he commanded sitting on his bed facing him. Paula was struggling back the budding tears, a feeling in her chest, as if she was being suffocated right along with him, taking the air from her body. She felt like she was dying, as she wanted him fade away into a mere shadow of the man he had once been.
“Paula, I’ve never told you this, not really, but I have to before I-“ He stopped. He couldn’t say the word die, it didn’t seem fitting and he knew it would only hurt her.
“Paula I love you.”
His breathing became ragged after he managed to get out the last syllable. Paula reached over and grabbed his hand, a feeling of breathlessness overcoming her.
“Simon, I love you too.”
“Y –ou Do?” His eyes light up as if he couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“I always have.”
Simon’s chest began to move rapidly as if it was out of his control. His eyes closed, as all the machines that were put in place to save his life began to let everyone around them know they were failing.
It was as if Paula was standing against the wall watching the surroundings of the room as everything happened so quickly. Nurses rushed in, the heart monitor beeping wildly. People were moving as quickly as they could manage, yelling, but she couldn’t see or hear any of it.
The only thing Paula knew in that moment was that Simon was holding her hand and that he loved her.
She could hear her own heartbeat in her ears as the steady beep of the monitor alerted that Simon was slipping away.
Without warning, Simon let go of her hand.
Paula snapped back to life in that moment, standing up, and yelling at anyone who would listen.
“Save him” she sobbed, “You have to save him.”
It was too late.
Simon was gone.
“Simon is someone who I never thought would be a part of the fabric that made up my life, but he was. He was the greatest man I’ve ever known. He was my best friend, someone who was forever there for me. Until that final, fateful day, we had never dared to speak of our love for each other…” She spoke softly, knowing that what she was about to say needed to be said.
She took a deep breath, looking at Ryan. He gave her an approving nod to continue.
“I think that was because we already knew that we loved each other. Simon completed me in a way nobody in my life ever could. He made me who I am today, and I won’t ever forget that.”
“I have always loved Simon, and I always will.”
