She was 20 and he was 26. They met by the river one May afternoon. She was a city girl who loved the outdoors. He was a young man who nursed his grief, who loved to be alone. They were complete opposites in every aspect.
“Hi!” She says.
She is petite and looks younger than her age, unusually pale but there was some glow in her small eyes. He’s sitting at the big roots of a mango tree at the riverbank, waiting for any fish that will bite his bait. He looks up and frowns as he sees the unfamiliar face. He looks back at the river and says, “Hello.”
She sits beside him. “Mind if I sit here?”
“You’re already sitting there,” he says without looking. “My name is Gessana,” she says after a long silence. “What’s your name?” “Arthur,” he replies.
After that they remain silent, and after several more minutes she tells him that she will go home now. He just nods. The following afternoon, she finds him again in the same spot.
“Hi! Please, do you mind if I sit here again?” she happily asks. A simple nod is his answer. She looks very fragile.
“Where do you stay?” he asks her after she is settled on the big stone beside the big roots where he sits. “Keanne is my cousin and she invited me to spend my summer vacation here.”
He nods again.
“I like it here, the place, this river, and the quiet environment.”
“Is that all?” he asks.
She opens her eyes. “Hmmm, it is relaxing in here, I like the green grass and the feel of the rough mango bark on my back. The warm stone I sit on. Everything!”
“Nature lover, huh?”
“Hummm, sort of.How about you?” He shakes his head negatively. “Nothing.”
She frowns. “Nothing?”
He nods.
“Hmmm, hearing it is something new!” she says jubilantly. But honestly, a person has always something on himself; beauty, joy, cravings, even loneliness and desperation.”
And that was the beginning. They became friends, sharing that something and nothing. But he lives in his dark past. She’s the light that comes to lighten his world, but summer will end after two weeks and his world will be dark again.
“But you don’t need to think sadness before it grips you,” she says.
“You will not enjoy life if you think of getting hurt. Someone we love might disappoint us, incurable sickness will embrace us, and some people will leave us behind. What matter is the lesson it teaches us, that there is always more to life than increasing its speed.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
The following day is a cloudy day for him. As he cleans his closet, he sees the picture of the woman he loved, he was about to marry a woman whom he’d given all his devotion and understanding, a woman he adored, yet left him because of some foreign ambitions. The grief and bitterness flows back to his heart.
She’s been waiting for him for two hours already yet even his shadow isn’t there. But she still waits … till the darkness envelopes the day and it’s time for her to go home. Every day she waits for him at the riverbank until the summer is over.
September.
“Where does she live?” He is sitting in the living room of Keanne’s house. She’s looking grumpily at him. “Please,” he begs.
“Heaven.”
He frowns. “Please tell me. I need to go to her and tell her how sorry I am.”
She shakes her head.
“She already passed away, two weeks ago. She had bone marrow cancer. You saw how pale she was? Of course you didn’t see it, because you always looked down at yourself.”
He sat by the river and wept silently, but tears would not return her form the grave. Then, he remembered what she said. “Always enjoy the present because it was God’s gift to us, and it’s the only thing that we have now.”
