Kindling life to an old memory

I remember her like she’s before me right now. I always see in front of me, two of us, as kids.

She would treasure anything I gave her. I loved how she dressed. She would always wear kira without tego or wonju. Her bare little hands would swing beautifully as we ran. No one had the very inquisitive eyes as she did. I crazily liked to lean against her and watch her take things out her pocket and toy with care. We loved to have one another.

One day, snow was decorating our village Sangmari. The tree under which we played was like granny. We drew smiles on the snow. We jumped with screams of our delight to look back at the trial of dents our feet left on the snow. We were halfway in building a snowman of our size and torso was ready, when suddenly she fell like a detonated building.

I half-carried and half-dragged her into my house. Her health wouldn't improve. Soon she was driven off to hospital. Her father accompanied her and her mom stayed back with tears. I watched through tear-blurred eyes. I didn’t even imagine this would happen in the last day we would be together.

I was counting on that day and was keeping away the feelings of worry. The accident ruined everything. The pain of leaving her tomorrow, that too without seeing her as I increased our distance with each step, was aggravatingly increasing.

As I feared, the next day, we left Sangmari without seeing her. To hope her full recovery was the only thing I could do. We had to move to the western part of the country called Begana because father got transferred to that place. 

Since then, we didn’t ever go back.

We are 17 years away from Sangmari now and these days my parents are at Shaba. I am 22 and a graduate from Gedu College of Business Studies.

I remembered her always the few early years after departing from there. We exchanged letters few many times. Then we completely lost contact. I could just imagine how she would look then. A decade later, I remembered her rarely. I thought “Even she would have forgotten me now”.

Graduation marks start of another phase of student’s life. But it seems one more phase of my life is revealing.

During the Orientation Program conducted by the Ministry of Labour, I saw a girl. Looking at her, the picture of the girl who I had the puppy-love, as they call it, came alive from it dormancy. She was leaning against a wall and the morning sun rays bathed her like milk.

I fell in love. I am in love now. I simply can’t help it. 

ILiveLove