The next morning didn't feel like a funeral.
The ache was still there, yes—but something had shifted. Meera woke up with her face pressed against the couch pillow, sunlight warming her cheeks, Aarav's shawl still draped over her shoulder like an unfinished sentence.
She didn't know if it was day three or forever day one. But what she did know was this:
She had a choice now.
And Aarav had given it to her—softly, lovingly, without begging. He had died in the most generous way anyone could. Not as a man defeated by disease, but as someone who refused to let illness define his love. Someone who made space for her grief and her survival.
She didn't cry as much that day. Not because it didn't hurt, but because the hurt had a place now.
It sat beside her as she pulled out her old journals. The ones she'd shoved in boxes when Aarav first got sick. The ones she was supposed to publish. The poetry that had once made agents write back and say, "You've got something rare."
She had laughed then. Rare. As if pain wasn't the most common language in the world.
Still, she flipped open a page from four years ago— a piece she had written after Aarav's second chemo session:
"Your bones feel hollow, but your voice is thunder. The world forgets you're dying when you smile like this."
It was raw. Honest. Unfinished. Perfect for the documentary.
Meera set up Aarav's camera. She sat in front of it. Hit record.
And read.
Her voice trembled at first, like it had forgotten how to speak without sobbing. But line by line, her cadence returned. The words moved through her like blood.
She read more. Another poem. Then another.
Finally, she said directly to the camera, "If you're watching this... then someone has survived someone."
A pause.
"And that means you've already done something impossible. You woke up."
Later that evening, she walked down to the town café where they used to sit every Sunday after Aarav's treatment. It was a 30-minute hike from the hill, and she hadn't walked that path in weeks. Her knees ached. Her lungs burned.
But she made it.
The barista, a soft-eyed woman named Riya, blinked in surprise.
"Meera?"
Meera nodded. "Is the window seat still ours?"
Riya smiled gently and led her to the corner table.
There were no flowers on the windowsill like before. But the sunlight hit the wood in the same way. Aarav would have liked that.
When her tea arrived, she pulled out her notebook and began writing again. This time, not for herself. Not even for Aarav.
For others like them. The ones still fighting. The ones still holding on. The ones who would lose and love anyway.
A page filled with words:
"Grief doesn't end, it transforms. Like water into ice. Still made of the same sorrow— but it shapes the world differently."
That night, back at the cottage, she lit three candles.
One for the day he died. One for the day she almost followed. And one for the day she chose not to.
She placed them near the cedar tree, where his grave now rested. The flames danced against the wind, but never died.
Meera sat beside the tree with the letter he left her clutched tightly in one hand.
"I'm going to do it," she whispered to him. "I'm going to finish it all. The film. The book. Our story." Then softer, "And I'll fill every second of it with you."
The next morning, she received an email.
One she hadn't expected.
Subject: Re: Your Work with Aarav Kapoor – Documentary Submission Inquiry
It was from a small independent film studio in Mumbai. Aarav had apparently submitted a rough cut of their documentary a month before he died. Along with a note:
"Still incomplete. But worth seeing. Because she's in it."
They wanted to feature it in an upcoming virtual film festival— "Voices of Unfinished Love."
Meera covered her mouth with both hands. Her breath hitched.
He'd sent it. Without telling her.
He believed in her even when she didn't believe in herself.
The studio requested the final footage by the end of the month.
Meera wrote back: "Give me two weeks. It'll be done."
And so the next two weeks became sacred.
Mornings were for video editing, organizing files, and transcribing old footage. Afternoons were spent filming new segments, reading from their journals, showing parts of their life together no one else had seen—like the day they danced barefoot in the snow, or the time Aarav wrote her name in shaving cream on the bathroom mirror.
Nights were for memories. She played his favorite songs. Reread the letter. Kissed the cedar tree goodnight like it still breathed with him.
She added a new poem to the final credits of the documentary:
"They said you were fading. But you've become the ink in my hands. You're everywhere now. And nowhere hurts as much."
The documentary was titled: "Two Days After You."
Because that's where her life had truly begun again. In the space between loss and promise.
When she submitted it, the studio replied within hours:
"We cried. We stayed silent after. And we felt loved. That's rare."
And still, she wasn't done.
A few days later, she opened an empty Word document titled:
"The Love That Died and Didn't."
The book.
She would tell the whole story. Their diagnosis. Their fights. Their passion. Their endings. The letters. The choice. The hill. The grave. The porch. The voice.
But more than anything—how he taught her to die without fear.
And how he taught her to live with even more courage.
On the last page of her journal that night, she wrote:
"You died softly. And yet, your echo is louder than anything alive."
"This is not a story about dying." "It's a story about choosing to stay."
To be continued…