The Anniversary

Kanchan sat on her porch sipping coffee with her best friend, Mita. It was one of those days when the cool breeze made one shiver for a mere second but the warm sunlight made it feel like a contradiction. It was one of those days when Kanchan looked forward to Mita going home so that she could go to her bedroom and cry alone, or with him. It was one of those days when Kanchan and Mita met up for their regular chats. It was one of those Fridays. And it was one of those anniversaries.

Mita was unusually quiet that day so Kanchan could go back into time and talk about the love of her life. Once more. On the anniversary.

Kanchan had met him during a conference in Chicago. He was overwhelming tall, and looked like a giant to the 5 feet tall Kanchan, and had the warmest brown eyes, overshadowing the crow's feet, she observed. Clad in a black business suit with no wedding ring made him look like the most eligible bachelor to Kanchan who had lived to be a 35-year-old single mother to a 12 year-old daughter.

And soon enough, Kanchan shocked herself by asking him out to a coffee. And sooner than she knew, he shocked her by obliging. Long discussions about educational laws over coffee and socioemotional development over dinner, soon turned into longer days of companionship and longer nights of romance and love making.

The day Kanchan's daughter went off to college, he proposed to her, like how she had always imagined since she was a little girl. Man down on one knee, flowers, a solitaire, tears, kisses, and a promise. The next month, they wed. It was a small ceremony with close family and friends. Some were happy and some not. Some felt like it was a perfect match and some felt that his dyed hair did not disguise his age. Some felt that Kanchan could have married someone younger while some felt that his age was not a barrier.

The same night, he suffered a stroke. He lost movement in his limbs, and his short-term memory.

Today was the anniversary of that dreaded day 15 years ago.

Today, she was his care-taker.