A Love Beyond Time

The waves of the sea came rushing forward and then receded, and her thoughts, too, crashed against one another in much the same way. Like a grape sinking into a golden goblet, the sun was burying its face in the western sky. The words he had spoken had mingled with her memories, just like the scent of salt carried by the sea breeze.

“Sara.”

When a complete stranger called her by her name, she felt an inexplicable sense of comfort. Why? It was not simply because he had called her by her name. Rather, in the state she was in, the voice of someone reaching out to her could not help but bring her some solace. And that voice, uttering her name with such gentle grace, unknowingly stirred within her a feeling of trust.

“Today is my birthday. Won’t you wish me?”

Was that merely a flattering line? Why should I wish him at all? Before she could even find answers to those questions, he simply explained that he was a friend of her friend. He had read her poems on Facebook, liked them, and therefore had sent her a friend request. He said it all so simply.

Those days when she had no one to call her own, the emptiness that had settled into her room, the phone that never rang—then, whenever a message from him arrived, she felt, without even knowing why, an immense happiness, as though meaning had once again begun to return to her life.

Sometimes she would pause and think.

Is this happiness going to last?

The question would arise.

And she would pull herself back.

Her uneven teeth, her complexion, her appearance that did not fit within the boundaries of what society had defined as beauty—these had nurtured an inferiority complex in her from childhood. Because of this, she had even avoided photographs.

“You will always be beautiful to me.”

Not only that day, but even after twenty years of married life, he continued to say the same thing.

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.”

Those words travelled with her throughout her life, alongside him.

They did not often say I love you to each other. Late at night, after the children had fallen asleep, they would sit close together, talking about everything and nothing over cups of tea. In that tea, somehow, the words I love you were spoken without ever being said.

She loved roses.

Every year, on her birthday, he would give her roses. The vase in their home was adorned with different flowers every day, but on that one special day of the year, it would be filled entirely with roses. That was his language of love.

From the very moment he had entered her life, when she had held his hands and wondered, Will this last?, he had never let go.

Their home was small.

But it was filled with memories, with the sound of laughter, with the days when the two of them had crawled, stumbled, collided, and struggled together to build a life.

Twenty-five years—all of it woven together.

Sara intertwined her fingers with his.

The warmth of his hand touched her soul, just as it had that very first day.

She remembered something she had read somewhere:

“To love is penance; to be loved is a blessing.”

She thought to herself that she was one of the blessed.

As the years slowly took their toll and their muscles began to lose their strength, she watched the grey in his hair with affection. She looked endlessly into his eyes, into the love he had carried there for her all these years.

He smiled that same simple smile.

“Sara.”

It was the very same voice that had once called her as a stranger.

Even today, it held the same tender note of reassurance as he drew her into his arms.

The woman who had once so often asked herself, “Why was I born?” had forgotten that question for twenty-five years.

Today, she asked herself something else:

“Could this be the purpose for which I was born?”

“It’s my birthday. Won’t you wish me?”

At his question, she smiled. She gathered his smiling face into her arms and kissed his palms.

In the darkened sea, somewhere in the distance, a ship rested beneath the moonlight…

Just like their love