She arose at daybreak.
The morning was the same.
Winter it was...cold as stone..she removed the drapes to let the sunlight in. The soft warm rays of winter sun greeted her to say "morning"!
She made her bed like she always does and made her way to the kitchen all set to prepare herself a cup of hot liquor tea. The morning paper was at the door.
Her morning has begun and it has been like this since long now...but today was a little different..
She sat by the window watching her garden out of the window pane..they always brought a smile on her face. Those innumerable in number and variant in colour. Names of all she knew and also the time and day each blossomed. Her teeny tiny children she called them, mute yet so dear to her that they always flashed that precious smile on her wrinkled face..
It was now time for her to visit them..water them..caress them and to see to it whether they needed any attention otherwise too. Lucky little creatures on earth they were loved and cared so well since so long and were always a treat to the eyes, some even spread an essence that was so often than not everlasting. Every little one of them seemed to display their bright colored petals as if in envy with the other as to which one could bring a wider smile to their "lady"!
Now it was time again to revert back to the kitchen. Her son was due to leave for office in sometime and preparing breakfast was a part of her daily routine as it was still too early for the maid to come who would only turn up by 11am to prepare lunch.
He came down in his office attire wished her morning, had breakfast and left for office. Going to the balcony to see him or her off whenever anybody left the house was her practice ever since a child she once narrated to her grandchildren. Her daughter-in-law with her children stayed separate, been three years now.
Accepting situations without expectations in life is what she she was preached, what she lived with and now
she preaches..
Her only grand-daughter of her eldest daughter was coming to visit her today after a span of almost six months. Back to kitchen again she put aside the best piece of Rohu fish reserved for her grand-daughter, made all the arrangements for all that was to be cooked by the maid for the afternoon.
It was now time for some crude work! digging up the mud in the garden, adding homemade fertilizers and creating a pothole to stuff in tea leaves and other daily wastes..
This june she completed 54 years of her marriage...dwelling in flowers and greenery was always her second love, first place was taken by her husband without any second thought. In love and sorrow she had spent those 54 years with him, and ever since these tiny little "flowers" came into her life he so envied them! but never complained cause they never seized to amaze her, make her happy and everyday she would spent at least an hour with him narrating him every little detail of her "little children" as she watched them and he watched her...grow old...through the years...He had passed away a week ago.
Her grand-daughter arrived, standing at the door as her gazed to see the morning paper still lying there.
Grandpa used to pick it up every morning and sit with it sipping his morning cup of tea with his wife beside the window!
She tiptoed over the wet mud and surprised granny clasping he hands on her eyes granny with all those wrinkles and gray hair took no time in recognizing that soft tender touch to be that of her most dear and favourite grand-daughter!
A common interest that the duo shared in flowers, her grand-daughter was only too happy helping her out in every and all kinds of gardening stuff!
She showed her granny the newspaper lying out and she was about to call out to her husband to ask him to pick them up..but she held her voice back..throats choked for a while..eyes welled up..the void created by someone you love is beyond words to express.
She turned back to her flowers, its leaves, its petals, their needs.
She still watches them with pride and admiration as they grow from a bud to a flower and watches them wither away.
She still dwells in her flowers, nurtures them.
But now she dwells in them all alone.
Every night she writes a letter penning down all that she wanted to say about her flowers to him and leaves it at his desk.
She dwells in the flowers remembering him.
