The goodbye that was never told
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July 13, 2018
The last scene I remember when I think about leaving United Kingdom in 2012, is a bustling Kirkgate Farmers market in the very Asian Bradford town; pretty odd thing to hold as a lifetime memory. It was two days before we were to fly to India and I was gathering some odd things I could carry home while I bumped into the one person I didn’t want to see before leaving. She was pretty blue eyes held in a fragile 90 year body with silvery white hair. Her skin was wrinkled but her smile was not. Her body was shaky but her voice was not. We had visited her home to bid a tearful goodbye a week ago. She had been our neighbour for a year while we had just moved to UK.
Muriel stood there staring into my eyes and I could see a fuzzy her while my eyes dripped. I said nothing and so did she. She had her shopping bag close behind her but she pulled me closer. I hugged her for that one last time knowing that it would be the last. I looked at that face and took as much in as possible, smiled and walked away from there not sure where I wanted to go.
She had held a special place in our hearts while we had moved to a new house starting a new beginning. We were a young couple, not knowing much about the weather in Britain or about anything else we were going to experience. Muriel sat by her window most of times and waved every time we both left to work. She baked us the most delicious apple pies on some days and on others she told us stories of her. About her husband who had served the Air Force or about her children, grandchildren and great grand children. She was widowed for a long time then but she mentioned her husband like he was with her.
Somewhere around a year after we were in India, we received a letter from her daughter Pam. She mentioned that Muriel was no more and she had wanted us to know. Shashi and I hugged tight. We knew she could now see us from the heaven above. Since then every milestone we have been through, we have fondly thought of her. She continues to shine a bright star in our lives.
