Love beyond boundaries

Part II

I kept looking at the flowers stunned with shock. I couldn't even think properly. For one second, The thought occurred to me that maybe Akshay send those to me but I shook myself out of it and tried to convince myself that there is no way Akshay send those and maybe they are not for me. That delivery man must have gotten wrong address. But he did asked for my name so was it possible that there is another Mrs. Priya Shinde in town?? These questions and thoughts kept swirling in my head making me dizzy. I stood up and went to table, carefully avoiding that bouquet I got a glass of water and gulped it down. I needed that. Just like I needed to know who send those flowers.
I stalked in my room, rummaging little I finally found the object I was looking. My mobile. I could call Tina's flower and ask for answer but I didn't have their number so I was left with only one option. Calling the owner of shop. Mr. Patel was close to our family. Akshay's nature won him over in first meeting when we shifted to this town and then his habit of gifting me flowers for numerous times became reason for their regular meetings. I normally hated to call him personally for such small thing but at the time I could not wait to find number of shop. Hesitantly I dialed his number. He picked up after few rings.
" Namaskar vahini. How are you?"
"I am fine Patel bhai. How are you?"
"Just like I always am. I am great. What make you call your bhai this morning? Do you need help with something? "
"Actually I do Patel bhai. One of your delivery boy delivered bouquet of roses this morning to me. I just wanted to know who send them." I winced at how that sounded.
"Hmmm. Vahini you sure the boy only gave you bouquet. I mean wasn't there any note or something? Did you check?" He questioned.
I mentally scolded myself for not checking that earlier. So I replied "Hold on a minute. I will check "pressing the mobile between shoulder and ear, I entered the dining room and inspected the bouquet. I found nothing.
"No patel bhai, there isn't anything on bouquet. Can you check and tell me who send these? I really wanted to know."
He muttered "idiots" on call and then said loudly to me " Vahini you don't worry. I will check and tell you as soon as possible. "
"Thank you so much. But please see it sooner. "I told him eager to know about that person. "I will. Bye vahini. Take care. Tell Ashish to stop by my house sometimes." he said and call disconnected.
I placed mobile down and sat at the table taking flowers in my hand. I caressed the flowers and remembered the first time I got red and white roses. It was first Valentine after our marriage. I was expecting him to be with me when I woke up but he wasn't. But after a hour he turned up and presented me with the biggest bouquet of red and white roses I have ever seen. I was so happy to see it. I asked him why the red and white roses and his reply made my heart warm till this day. He said " Priya, Do you remember when we sat here watching some tv at night that day ? We were watching some romantic comedy which you forced me to watch." With this he glared at me mockingly and I giggled. He continued " The guy gave his girl very big bouquet of roses and declared his love. You sighed besides me and said that You wanted this but the roses should be white and red, your favorite combination. And also it is symbolic way to tell that I love you deeply and truly. Don't look at me like that I googled it. But that's beside point. What I want to say is I Love you Priya. I love you so much. I will complete you every wish, your every dream. I will love you till my last breath and even after that. Today people tell their loved once how much they mean to them and I also wanted to show you that. I want to spend this day with you. Will you be my Valentine today? "He said that kneeling down on his one knee and I was ecstatic after hearing those words. To this very day, I remember that conversation like it happened recently. I sat there hugging those flowers and remembering the memories it brought back and fighting back the tears.
Again I heard knock on door and went to see who it was. It was the same delivery man who delivered bouquet earlier. Before I could ask anything, he started talking, "I am really sorry ma'am. I was given strict orders to deliver this letter with flowers but I forgot in my rush. Mr. Patel just called to remind me that. I didn't know you know him. I am sorry ma'am. Please tell him I gave you this letter. Will you? "He was looking at me expectedly and I just nodded to him. He looked relieved and handed me letter. After telling me he had hundred of bouquet to deliver he left and I was left with letter.
I was more than curious about the person so I opened him and saw a very familiar handwriting. Akshay's handwriting. Feeling shock once more I started reading it.

" Hey priya,
I know you are rolling your eyes at the start but you know I never wrote letter besides one I wrote as homework and those are not any help for this so I don't know how to start and settled for hey Priya. This sounds cool. Right? Our son says this phrase a lot. I learned it from him.
I should get to the main point otherwise I would write a book to you and you won't get why I wrote this. I just wanted to say Happy Valentine's day ,love. And I hope you got the bouquet. Yes I send those and you will get similar one for every Valentine's day after this. Because I love you now when I am alive and will love you even after I died. I want to show that to you so I arranged this before my operation and writing this letter when you are sleeping soundly besides me.
Do you remember when I started to feel sick? Of course, you do because that's when our life started to get worse. After your constant nagging, I consulted doctor and found I have brain tumor. I still remember the shock and sight of you breaking down. It was the most painful sight for me. I couldn't see you like that. Hence I convinced you for surgery and went for it because it give us a hope of Me getting better. Doctors gave their warning on how this could went but it is still better than doing nothing. I know I may not make it out of surgery. This thought terrifies me but what is more terrifying is the way you will be after me. I saw the way you act now. All your attention is on me. You aren't even taking care of yourself. Your only focus is getting me better. But What if I don't make it? What if I died?
I know you will fall apart. I can't imagine life without you so I know how devastating that life without me will be. I know you will cry. Lock yourself up in house and forget to smile because you are doing that now. But You need to stop doing that, love. No matter how hard this seems you have to live your life without me. You have to smile, laugh, sing and enjoy this life.
This tumor taught me importance of life. I wanted to see Ashish's life. I want to be there for him. Watch him achieve success and settle in his life. I wanted see him falling in love and getting married but I didn't get that. But you have chance. Make most of it Priya. Be there for him from your and my behalf.
As for you Priya, you are the most precious thing in my life. You have been there with me during my up and down moments. You bear with me when I acted like jerk sometimes. I know we were not perfect. We fought and had our fair share of disagreement but the relationship we had was perfect in its own way. I wanted to tell you this but couldn't tell you so chose the letter to tell you. I lived my life fully with you Priya and you should too. Don't mope around. You look like a cartoon when you do that.
And I am glad I got to spend today with you. In case you are wandering this is Valentine's day. Even if I couldn't be with you on next Valentine, a part of me will be there. I love you Priya. Don't you ever forget that. I promised to love you always and I intend to keep that promise.
Yours madly, truly, handsome-ly
Akshay.

"
I was crying when i completed reading letter but I was laughing also. It was such a bitter sweet moment for me. I couldn't believe he did this for me. Akshay was romantic. He used to do sweet gestures for me but even after he left , his this gesture showed that he did love me truly. His love was beyond any boundaries. I clutched that bouquet to my chest and whispered that "I love you too Akshay and I promise you that I will not cry over your....... death. I promise to be happy and be there for Ashish. " saying the word "death" finally made me acknowledge it fully that Akshay won't be back and for first time after a year of his death, I didn't hurt badly.
I knew I had to do something after this and that something waited in my bedroom. I went there and dragged a photo frame I took off the wall after his death. It was our wedding photo. It hurt badly to look at it after he left.... no after his death. So I took it down and hid it but I knew I had to hang it back to its place. To start keeping my promise to him. And after the photo of us wearing smiles and look of happiness. Anyone could tell how much we love each other. That is only reason I took it down but after reading letter, looking at it didn't hurt badly. Just little longing and I knew it will always be like that. Because it was true love. The love we don't find often and think exists in fairy tell along with magic and knight in shining armor. Even though we didn't get our fairy tale ending, what we had was amazing.

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
So you read till end? You are awesome. I worked hard on this story and I appreciate you read it. This is based on real events but I changed a lots of things to make it fit for story. I tried editing it as much as I can but if you still find errors point it out to me. I love hearing from you. I think you might have found few words foreign here thats because I used my native language here. The meaning of words are
Vahini - the term used to adress sister-in law
Namaskar - Way of greeting just like we use Hello.
Bhai - The term used to adress brother.
Please vote, comment and share if you like this story.
~MystryGirl