My Daughter
I tried to contain my excitement and stare out the window. I was waiting for my daughter. Every year she had made a card for me on valentine’s day .
It had all started with the valentine’s day 17 years ago, when the nursery teacher had asked the class to make cards for people they like. While the rest of the class had made cards for their friends and classmates, my Sona had made one for me. She had run to me that day after school, proudly presented her work and said, “I love you the most, papa”.
Ever since then, it had become a tradition of sorts. During the first week of February, she would hide in her bedroom and work on a beautiful card and handcraft a gift for me. At dinner, I would try and guess what she would give me . It was a delight to see her dissolve into giggles and turn red with joy. She would then surprise me on Feb 14 before leaving for school.
Things changed last November. She was driving home in the night when she was hit. Died on impact, they said. The other driver was drunk, hadn’t paid any heed to traffic signals and had just rammed into her. He was apprehended, but what was the use of it? A life gone can never return.
I was devastated. 20 years is all I had with her. I’ve done everything to stop myself from going mad. I cremated her, put her ashes in an earthen urn and buried it in a rose garden nearby. I regularly visited her there and watered the shrub growing over her ashes.
However, today, I’ve had this warm feeling within me. That Sona will come and present me with a card as she always did in the past.
I wasn’t wrong. While eating my dinner, I heard a knock at the door. There was noone when I looked through the peephole. I opened the door to find a yellow rose on a mound of dirt.
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