Seven Lifetimes and Still You

There are moments in life when love is not measured by how tightly we hold on, but by how gently we let go. Mia had always been the soft kind of sunshine in Arick’s life. She laughed at things too easily, cried at things too deeply and trusted the world even when it gave her reasons not to. Adrian never understood how he got lucky enough to be loved by her. 

They met on a cold December night at one of Arick’s photography exhibitions. She walked in wearing a bright yellow dress and a smile that could light up the darkest corners of his life. Raised in privilege but not in peace, Mia lived under her father Jack’s control who is a businessman with power stretched across the country. Her mother, Avilan, was respected yet starved of affection. Their marriage was quietly toxic, built on emotional distance. Growing up in such a home, Mia feared marriage more than anything.

When Arick confessed, “In your eyes I see my future. Will you be my partner for life?”, her answer was a terrified “No.” But slowly, tenderly, she trusted again. They fell in love like rain turning into a river. They married quietly despite her parents’ disapproval and were later blessed with a daughter, Jennie, who became the light of their lives. They lived softly, loved loudly, and for years, Mia still whispered, “You make my heart smile.”

Then everything changed.

It began with shorter conversations and a quiet pulling away. Arick brushed it off as stress, but soon she barely answered his calls. She avoided his eyes. She canceled dates. Until one evening, she said the sentence that ended their world, “I think we need a divorce.” Arick broke. Nothing made sense. The next day she claimed she was going to church, but he saw her at a mall with another man. Confused, heart trembling, he said nothing. That night when she came home, he asked gently, “Where were you?” Her voice exploded. “Why do you care?”

Her phone rang moments later and it showed ‘My Love.’ Arick’s hands shook. “Who is this, Mia?”. Coldly, she replied, “He is my love. I don’t want you anymore. I’m bored of you. My happiness is with Jeremiah. I don’t even need Jennie.” Each word stabbed deeper. Arick cried, but he still placed her happiness above his own. He gave her the divorce and kept custody of Jennie. Mia walked away and vanished from their lives just like she promised.

Five years passed. Jennie turned eleven. Arick never spoke a single bad word about Mia. He only told Jennie, “Your mother loved you more than anything.” But Jennie remained confused because letters came for a few months, then fewer, then none. To her, Mia was simply someone who abandoned them.

One afternoon, Arick received a call from Avilan, a woman who had never reached out before. “I need to meet you”. At her home, she looked fragile, burdened by truths she had carried alone. She held Arick’s hand and whispered, “I know why Mia left.” Arick’s breath caught. “Mia had stage four lung cancer,” Avilan said. The world went silent. His heart stopped. His knees weakened. Avilan continued through tears. “It started with headaches… fainting. Then the diagnosis. Everything collapsed. But she didn’t want you or Jennie to suffer. She didn’t want you to watch her die. She believed leaving you would free you.” Arick broke completely. “She should’ve told me, I would’ve held her, I would’ve stayed.” “She knew that,” Avilan whispered. “That’s why she pushed you away.” Then she handed him a letter. “She wrote this for you.”

With trembling fingers, Arick opened it.

My Arick,
If you are reading this, then I am no longer with you tomorrow. But I am still and will always be, in your yesterday. I wish the world had given me more time with you. I wish I had been brave enough to tell you the truth. But I was terrified of becoming a memory while still breathing beside you. Arick, I did not want you to fight a battle that was already lost. Forgive me for not being brave enough to tell you. You were my blessing in a world full of curses. I left because I did not want Jennie’s childhood filled with hospitals and tears. But know that not even death could stop me from loving you. If there is a world after this one, I will wait for you there. Seven lifetimes and still you. If there is none, then my love will still reach you in ways you cannot see. Take care of our Jennie. Arick, you were my whole story.

Arick pressed the letter to his chest and collapsed in tears. Every truth he begged for over five years finally arrived and it destroyed him. Days later, Jennie found the letter under her father’s pillow. As she read Mia’s trembling words, her small body shook. She ran to Arick sobbing, “She loved us, Papa, she loved us so much.”

A week later, father and daughter stood at Mia’s grave, surrounded by wilted lilies. Arick placed her wedding ring on the cold stone and whispered, “You didn’t have to die alone.” Jennie pressed her cheek to the gravestone. “Mommy, we’re okay now. You can rest.”

As the wind carried the faintest trace of Mia’s perfume, Arick understood that love does not end with goodbye,  it simply learns to live inside the silence she left behind.

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