With such gratefulness in heart, I am here, standing at the beach - Chennai Marina, where I first met love, where I first met my wife. We had been married for three years. The force of the waves, splashing on my knees, reminds me the force with which I entered into her life. Our's was not a love marriage. When we met, she asked me only one question. “Will you take care of my parents too?”. I replied “Everyday”. That peppy look in her eyes, brimmed over with tears of joy, accompanied with a smile...it was so powerful and sharp like a diamond. It penetrated through several layers of my mind, pierced through my heart and wrote in crimson red “S A R A H”. The tides after hitting the shore always take something back to the ocean. It takes me back into the ocean of love, her memories.
Sarah used to write a lot of letters before marriage. Those letters never failed to spark a flame of love in me. She would design her own greeting card for our Anniversaries. She would present her own drawings, paintings, poetry, special sweets to me on special occasions and charm me in a blink. For birthdays, she would write her own quotes and a "Happy Birthday" note decorated with artistic fonts. I had always envied her way of expressing love. But, I must accept that I had never showed her the love she deserved. Worst of it all, I had never thanked her for so many beautiful things she did. I thought, we had more time. I always thought I had more time to love her and say sorry to her. I was miserably, completely wrong.
I have more time now, to feel wretchedly alone. The waves backing off the shore makes me feel like falling. It's more like I cannot prevent my own downfall. I balanced and managed to save the letter in my hand. I have come here to post a letter to my wife. Where else could I post a letter to her, other than Marina? Oops..A powerful wave just hit me and took off the letter. Yay!! I know, it is Sarah. She has come in the form of divine waves. She is curious to know what I have written for her. She knows, the letter has the answer for the question she asked lately. The answer is ........
The waves are dancing and jumping all over me. Huh.. Which scenic place on earth can make me feel her presence? Jumping over me, that's Sarah's extreme way of expressing her happiness. When Sarah came in my dream yesterday, I could not answer her right away. The dream was so real that I saw myself in her mirroring eyes. She expressed her love through her eyes. I had to express my pain through my eyes. The pain was so intense that I almost stopped breathing. Every cell, dead and alive, they screamed at a top pitch 'Come back, Sarah'.
She waited in front of my eyes, for more than an hour, expecting an answer. I tried to tell her that I was sorry for not attending her brother's marriage, sorry for avoiding breakfast with her, sorry for forgetting her mom's birthday, sorry for everything that took her from me. But the lump in my throat only dissolved into tears. She left with the same peppy look which I saw when I first met her. That peppy look in her eyes, splintered my dream and wrote in every neuron of my central nervous system, "It's Okay. I'm here". I woke up this morning as a happy man. I wrote my reply in a letter and came here to post it. Her question was, “Will you forget me, when I am gone?”. I know, she got her answer now.
-Firewall_Sudhan
