The Woman My Grandmother Loved.

Chapter Twenty-seven

1979

Becky's last letter.

Dearest Anita,

It only feels fitting to remind you that I loved you first. All those years ago, when you first told me that you loved me first; I didn't quite understand the wisdom behind the sentence. What does it matter, I thought, to have loved me first, second, or third? But you were always so farsighted, weren't you? You had seen it coming and it does matter, I realize. Because when he traces the lines on your face and tells you that you're beautiful; it feels as though he will be plagiarising me. This is a really stupid accusation to make and the thought of it makes me laugh. Can you imagine me turning up with a legal notice at your door? I don't have a right on you but what I do have are these memories. These are wholly mine and in these trips to the past, I can relive those moments over and over again.

Your letter contained so much finality and the declaration that I couldn't help but laugh. The letter was so very much like your stubborn self and I am glad that some things about you are still the same. You won't be writing to me again and this is how we must end, you say. Is it really truly an ending? Do we have the confirmation stamped all over us? I will have to refuse what you have asked me to do. I will write you an annual letter, even if you don't read them and don't reply. Even if you move addresses and the only person who reads my letters are the curious sons of the new residents. Maybe they'll be fascinated by my letters and write back to me; an obscure friendship developing all because of you. But I digress. Will that really be an end, though? Can you promise me that within the layers of your mortal loyalty to your husband, you will never think of me? I am not aggrieved by the idea of you getting married; I had known it all along that someday a letter like this would find its way to my door; but to say that we are ending, Anita?

We cannot end and we will not end. You staying silent on the other side of the continent does not make me love you less.  And I know that you do too. Quietude is not the same thing as ending for even silence speaks volumes of love if you know how to read it. And I know you. Every single day of my life since the fateful year of '69 I have been in awe of you. I have admired every single thing that you are and have become. I have looked at your courage, your resilience and wanted to become more and more like you. I even managed to make some Indian friends so that they could send me snippets of your articles, your views, and once in a while, my heart would skip a beat when I saw your photograph inked in black and white on the paper. 

Don't tell me that we are ending, as though you were the only one who holds all that we have shared.

You act as though un-loving were an option. As though love were ever a choice.

But I will grudgingly respect your decisions. I will not ask you to write to me or even to read my letters. I will not tell you what to do; because I respect your ability to think for yourself. In that, I ask you to extend the same to me.

I have reread your letter and now I realize; do I really have anything to complain about? Even in defeat, you have loved me as much as you would have loved me in victory. And can I really ask for more than that? Do most people even get half of this? There isn't a lot for me to moan about and I won't do so. Maybe you are right; perhaps love is overrated. It is at the end of the day emotion and we are slaves to our emotions. We claim to be able to control them but rarely do we manage to rise above them. At first, it maddened me when I read it but by and by it makes sense. It is the truth that matters. I don't really think we have much of a choice as to which truth we can afford or not, Anita and I think that's where you are wrong. I think we have our truths and that is what it is. There is you and only you and I refuse to fight it anymore.

May reality stay as is, nothing changes the fact that I have loved you and tried not to. And I have failed miserably at it and will not stop loving you. That is the reality and the truth and it doesn't matter how many philosophies we throw around in an attempt to explain it. It is unexplainable and it simply flows and flows even when I feel I ought to have exhausted my supply. That is what it is.