The Unkept Garden

The rain in Brunei is hardly ever gentle.

Except on the night she landed. Then it fell whisper-soft, as if it knew she was returning from a bruising journey one that had carved sorrow into her bones.

Raindrops mingled with teardrops as she stepped out of the car. Mr. Kim, her driver, hunched over her oversized suitcase, muttering as he hauled it toward the front steps. She didn’t understand much of what he said, but in the twenty-minute drive from the airport to her home, they had somehow exchanged stories, through hand gestures, laughter, and a quiet acknowledgment of shared burdens. She offered to help with the bag; he waved her off. His pride lay in the care he gave to strangers. From airport gates to doorsteps, he saw it through.

“Travel light” had always been her motto. But packing up your life demanded more than a carry-on. Thirty dollars exchanged hands, too much but she let it go. A small indulgence, like pretending everything was normal.

The house stood like a sulking child: dark, neglected, unwelcoming. The door resisted her key, swollen from humidity or maybe grief. She shoved it hard. The suitcase tipped forward, her body stumbling after it, and the house swallowed her whole.

Inside, it was still. Not peaceful. Just empty.

Dust clung to the air. The silence was thick, broken only by her sneeze, loud and jarring, echoing down the hallway like a shout in a cave disappearing into nothingness. She stood in the dim entryway, unmoving, as if the house might speak to her if she waited long enough.

She shouldn’t have come back. Not yet. Not while he still needed her.

He was in recovery still half of him, anyway. The other half, the one that used to laugh and grip her hand a little too tightly when excited, that half was fighting its way back. Or perhaps it was gone for good. But she saw the signs, the reaching out…the flutter of movement slowly returning… So, she knew…maybe not the same, but he would be back.

She had left him in the care of others who had insisted she go. “Rest,” they said. “The worst is over.”

But the guilt gnawed at her. Would he fade in her absence, the way the garden had, wild with weeds and brown patches where green used to be? She could still hear his voice in that garden, calling her over to admire the fairy lights or to have a chat whilst out hanging the washing to dry…The memory clawed at her chest.

She dropped onto the couch. It exhaled as if recognizing her return, as if the furniture had been holding its breath in her absence. Her body folded into the lumpy chocolate brown, the leather enveloping her in a huge hug all sharp edges and hidden grief.

Loss didn’t arrive all at once. It crept in.

It started with a phone call. You know instantly when it’s bad news. The hesitation where there should be a “Hello.” The pause before someone breaks your life into pieces. After that, grief becomes a muscle memory. You walk. You answer questions. You pack a bag. You don’t remember how, but you do…

He’d suffered, turned around at death’s door. They weren’t sure how he did it, some say “miracle’, others still say “faith and prayer”. I know it is his stubbornness, and all the rest combined.

She remembered her trembling hands, the shaky nerves, the unsteady voice as she managed the business of illness and care, as she answered questions about him that came too soon, her mind already racing to futures she couldn’t bear to imagine.

But he had survived.

Barely.

She didn’t recognize him like this, splayed out, not moving, his face ashen and drawn... But then he strained, lifting two fingers ever so slightly, a small sign that he was still there, that he was busy fighting and that he was determined to keep his promise to her of road trips and shenanigans in their old age.

A ghost of his grin appeared, as did hers through the grief and the pain.

Fighting.

Every day since, he had clawed his way back. Small steps. Shaky ones. But steps nonetheless. He greeted family with tired thumbs-up selfies and grinned crookedly through physical therapy. He saved his tears. And only when he thought no one was looking, a worried look cast shadows on his bravado. She, forever vigilant, saw it and it broke her more than anything.

And still, she loved him. Not out of pity, or duty, but because even in his brokenness, he reminded her of the man who once lifted her into his arms and promised her forever.

Thirty plus years ago, he’d made that vow. And now, forever meant something new.

Growing old was never going to be graceful. Bones forgot their strength. Skin sagged. But love, real love, remembers everything, even when the body can’t.

She pushed herself off the couch with a sigh that came from somewhere deeper than exhaustion. Her limbs moved like someone else’s. She climbed the stairs slowly and opened the bedroom door.

The bed was too big for one.

She lay down on her side carefully smoothing his pillow, stroking his spot, longing for him to be there. She curled into the space where his warmth used to linger.

“He’s still here,” she whispered to the universe.
“He is fighting…hard.”

And though the house still smelled of dust and desperation, and the garden outside was a mess of untamed grass and weeds running wild, she believed, truly believed that he would be home soon.

Because love, like the rain that fell softly that night, seeps into every crack.
And it waits.
And it remembers where love lives.

This post is dedicated to Shah & Giebs, 

for putting in the good fight.

Alhamdullilah