Remembrance ✔(Love & Military Series #1)

01 || Remembrance

Death only consumes the physical existence of a beloved, but not the memories and the love, they share with their dear ones.

The Memories

"Ma'am, this enveloped letter was found in Major Mehrotra's tent while we were packing his belongings. Since its addressed to you, I thought it would be best to deliver it to you, with his other belongings and trunk."

She heard the man, who was dressed in the Olive Green army uniform, say this to her. Today, her deceased husband's belongings were to be delivered to her. And this man, who was her husband's junior, had come to deliver his late troop leader's trunk and letter to her.

"Thank you." she managed to say, telling herself to not break into tears infront of her husband's junior, who had always considered her husband to be one of the strongest men, physically and mentally as well as emotionally.

"Don't say thanks, Mrs. Mehrotra. This was the least I could do. I owe this life of mine to your late husband, Major Kabir Mehrotra. If he hadn't had pushed me aside and took the bullets instead, I would've died there. I'd always owe him this." said the man in Olive Green uniform, whose name was Lieutenant Jay Chauhan. "If you and your family ever need any help, please let the army or me know. I'd be very glad to be of some help to Major Thapar's family."

"Sure, thank you again," she said, with only a faint smile.

"I should take your leave now, Ma'am," said Lieutenant Chauhan.

"Okay." she said. And Lieutenant Jay Chauhan left after this.

Once he left, she closed the door. For a few minutes, she stood transfixed to the same spot, feeling the warmth of her husband surround her as she stared at the envelope in her hands. Her husband's first and last letter to her.

For a small fraction of second, she felt her husband standing beside her, admiring her like he usually used to do, with his love filled black eyes and a disarming smile. But it was just for a fleeting second, as soon she realised that he was gone, for forever, away from her. After all, just this morning only she had completed the last rite of her husband's, the immersion of his ashes in the holy river Ganga.

Tears brimming in her eyes, threatening to roll out, she slowly walked to her room. Behind her, she carefully dragged her husband's trunk. As she walked, the photographs on the walls, of her late husband with his family and her, made a few tears to roll down her eyes. It wasn't easy for her, not at all easy to cope with this loss, when she had just learnt to love him more than herself.

Wiping the tears away from the back of her hand, she climbed the stairs, passing a small smile to her parents-in-law, both of who were just as woeful and broken as her. If she had lost her husband, then they had lost their only son, their daughter's only brother. Their pain was just as tormenting as hers, or maybe hers was bigger than theirs. Perhaps because they still had their time with him, while she, in last three years of marriage, only had gotten to spend just some months with him, half of which had gone in getting to know each other since they were an arranged marriage couple.

The door of the bedroom, which till three days back, was her and her husband's, was pushed open by her and she walked inside, only to be welcomed by the several framed photographs of her and her husband's on the wall of their bedroom, across the door. It was her husband's idea to cover the wall with their pictures, and in future with their kid's. She had accepted his wish, and even fulfilled the remaining wish, too, of putting their six-month-old daughter's pictures on the wall, one with him holding their newborn daughter with the biggest and most contented smile on his face.