Rekindled Love

“I am sorry but we did everything we could” the heads surgeon’s words landed heavily on me. My heart fell at those words and within a jiffy my world came tumbling down, shattering into a thousand pieces. A lone tear traced its path down my cheek as I rushed towards her.

The walls of the hospital were closing in on me with the never ending fluorescent lights casting an unsettling pallor. My footsteps echoed through the corridor and reverberated with my unsteady heart.

At-last I reached the room where she was kept. I looked at the plate besides the door- the name “Divya” engraved on it and delicately embraced by twin rose leafs. It was the same room where we had spent hours dreaming about our life together once this ordeal was over… oblivious to the fact that it were to meet such a fateful end. My hands trembled and time seemed to distort as I slowly started to push open the door afraid of shattering the delicate illusion that she was still with me…

I drew the curtains aside and there lay her ethereal figure, bereft of life. Her mask of serenity was the testimony of angelic disposition. Recollections of those adorable curves of her smile, those tender lips parting to give way for her adorable laugh and the electric touch of her fingers intertwined in mine flooded through me…

Then I reached out and tenderly grasped her hand. It was still warm as if her presence lingered on, clinging on and refusing to let go. I gently pressed my lips against her knuckles, a kiss- whispering to her a lifetime of unspoken promises… 

***

I opened my eyes, an incessant torrent of tears rolled down my cheeks and as I sat by the window, looking out at the world that had seemingly lost its color… I felt this void in my heart that seemed too colossal to fill. Desperation and solitude had forced me to seek refuge in the letters we had exchanged over the course of our relationship, providing me momentary emotional escape.

One similar day a thought occurred to me- “What if I could rewrite letters to her?” The idea seemed audacious but I was equally desperate for any form of connection to her and so I began pouring out my thoughts, pain and undying love within the folds of these letters. It soon became a habit to place them on the windowsill, imagining the wind just carrying away my love to her- wherever she was… and now as I looked at a stack of them, I felt this peculiar comfort as if these letters had bridged the gap between the ethereal and physical world.

These letters had helped eased down my inner self, providing me with peculiar comfort and newfound strength to once again, within the outer world… I just wished to tackle my greatest fear created by her absence and thus visiting the park where me and Divya had met seemed to be a good place to start.

***

One particular evening, while I was sitting in the park, I noticed a woman sitting on a bench nearby. She had some sort of a gentle aura, a kind smile, and eyes that held a touch of sorrow. She looked at me, and for a moment, our gazes met, igniting a spark of recognition deep within me. Intrigued I approached her and we began to talk… that was the beginning of the rekindling of my love. Her name was Ruchika, a woman whose presence felt like a half-remembered dream…

We talked about life, loss and beauty in the midst of pain. Her presence began to fill the void that Divya, my lost love, had left within me. This continued for days and weeks… I just couldn’t explain this sense of déjà vu, or why I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame… all I knew that there was some inexplicable intense passion in the relationship.

***

A few weeks later…

Weeks had passed by and our relationship grew manifolds but then one evening, everything changed…

That evening, as we sat together, Ruchika handed me a letter. I felt a flutter within me as I opened the letter but was taken aback by what I saw... The handwriting unmistakably belonged to Divya. It read as follows…

“I reside in every tear you shed, every memory you cherish and every flutter you feel in your heart. I never left you but linger on in the form of the woman who brought joy to your life… one who rekindled love in your life.”

The paper trembled in my hands, and tears blurred my vision. The handwriting unmistakably belonged to Divya. I felt a mixture of profound disbelief coupled with overwhelming tenderness as though the love of bygone days had been resurrected in a fragile piece of paper…

I looked up to meet the gaze of the woman whose reason to come to my life extended far beyond chance. Her angelic smile coupled with the understanding of a kindred spirit entrenched within me a profound sense of connection that spanned time and space.

"It's you," I whispered, my voice trembling with the plethora of emotions "It's always been you."

Tears shimmered in Divya’s eyes as she nodded. “I never left you…”

And as the sun dipped below the horizon, Divya and I sat with our hands entwined, two souls united by an unbreakable bond- my second chance at love, one that would forever be intertwined with the memory of the woman who had first taught me it’s true meaning.

-The End