The only kind of love is the unconditional one. I didn’t realize it in the start but at the end of my life; when I had nothing to give in return but I guess he never wanted one. Not an apology, no nothing! He was a gem. This might sound like an obituary where people in the modern times mask facts and try to show the person who has died in a good light but trust me; this isn’t one of those. I will tell it like it is.
Starting from my childhood, my parents just hired a gardener to look for our lawn and keep it handsome. The gardener, who we had hired, started living in the outhouse. It was a family of 3 just like us except that they had a boy near about my age. My parents were downright outspoken on education and they asked the gardener to admit his son in the local school. I also went to the same school.
I have been a very observant person since the very beginning. He was a silent type; the one who always stood apart from others. We changed schools as we grew older and he also had to work part-time to help his dad.
I had never noticed him much. I had never seen him on a date. Now, I had grown up and was going to the university which he couldn’t afford so he worked clerically. He became a non-entity to me.
This was the time when I was hit with a catastrophe. My parents died in an accident and I was left all alone in this world. I had to let the gardener and his wife go. They pleaded with me to let them stay but I only had enough to keep up the house and pay for my education.
Life went on. What amazed me was the fact that my garden remained weed free, trimmed and manicured. However, I didn’t bother to find out the mystery behind the cause. I completed my education and returned to my home and started teaching at the local college. I married a guy. It was a huge mistake. The guy who I had married wasn’t what he had seemed earlier.
I had received a letter a few days before my marriage which had warned me against this. We got a divorce.
I was unlucky enough to get a paralytic stroke which left me in a coma. I later on came to know that the doctors had lost all hope. Only one guy had forced them to keep me as a patient and remained by my bedside to care for me day and night. He also forced them to operate on me.
The operation went on to be successful and I got out of the coma. When the doctors asked me where my husband was, I told them that I had none. I was a divorcee. They told me that a guy had been there to take care of me but unfortunately they didn’t know anything about him.
I was surprised. But I had no way to get to know him. Years passed and now I am an old lady. I recently got a letter in which was enclosed a will, by which I became the owner of everything a certain clerk owned. I rattled my memory but couldn’t place the name. I went to the address and the people at the old home there showed me a photo of the silent gardener child who had once worked for us.
My eyes welled up with tears when I came to know through a letter that he had left for me, if I ever came this way, that he would love me as a partner in the world hereafter. God bless him and if I had known, I would have done everything to get hold of this person who had loved me so unconditionally!
