The trees had painted the park’s carpet in every shade imaginable. Rain and wind began to wash it clean; the first frost bit into their beauty. The leaves slowly started losing their charm, their stories fading as autumn’s magic grew quiet. The evenings stretched longer and longer, and here and there someone lit the first candles of the season. And then—I see you. Walking home. Your beloved little dog trotting beside you on the leash. You take the same path as always. Your shoulders slightly bowed. You seem to hurry, yet your steps are slow. You’re coming home. I’m waiting for you.
I’ve wiped the table clean and was about to spread the tablecloth. But I sat down instead. The tablecloth doesn’t matter—we never used one anyway. But we always had coffee. I rise from the chair and put the kettle on. I always did that when you called to say you were coming over for coffee. I set the cups on the table and brew it black, just the way you liked it. No sugar. I don’t prepare a special meal. I’ll serve whatever I made today. I always did that. I never let you leave without eating something.
So I get ready and I wait. I wait for that knock on the door. There’s so much left unsaid inside me—so many untold stories, unspilled emotions. Because you don’t come as often anymore. Because that one visit a year doesn’t soften the ache—it deepens it. I see your face. You’re sitting in the same chair, in the same spot as always. Only… those walls are gone now. That kitchen is gone. The chair is gone. And time has taken you somewhere I cannot follow, somewhere from which you return only once a year.
But I still hear your voice. And I would give anything—anything—for a single moment to hold you again. Not a memory. Not an image. Not a photograph. You. Alive. Here, in this world—not the next. To touch you, to feel your warmth, to hear your voice—not as an echo, but right here, beside me.
How I long for a miracle… But all I can do is live within the brightest memories you ever gave me—an immeasurable gift.
We sit together… drinking coffee… You stroke the dog’s soft brown head, and she looks up at you with those faithful eyes that never leave your face. I sit and tears stream down my cheeks, because before me there’s only your picture—emerging from the quiet depths of memory.
I miss you every day, every hour, every minute, every second—every fleeting moment. And I thank the gods that I was granted memory—to remember those precious, crystalline, fragile moments that once seemed endless, yet dissolved into time like morning mist rising on a summer dawn… leaving behind only this never-ending, soul-tearing longing—and a waiting that knows no place, no time, no words… but is felt so deeply it burns.
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