In My Heart, He Lives.

I approached the young man with a smile on my face. He looks like his father. In fact, he resembles his father in a lot of ways. I can’t help but to look at him whenever I missed his father. It’s the only way, now that his father is no longer living with us.

Six years ago, I was married to a man I never knew. He was my parents’ choice. I can’t do anything regarding this because their decision was final and will never be changed, unless one of us died. But I could not kill him, or myself. So I had to live on with the decision made for me. We were engaged for about three months but I felt like it was only three minutes. Time really flied when you want it to wait even longer.

The big day came, and I got married to him. Not to my knowledge, he was reluctant to get married too. He was just like me, to disobey is beyond the sky but to follow is beyond the sea. It was hard to do both, but had to live on with one. His parents wanted us to live with them until our financial stabilize.

In front of our parents, we had to put on a mask. We pretended to be nice, loving and caring to each other. But we did not hate each other behind our parents’ back. We just did not really that loving, caring and nice to each other. We helped each other with chores and we looked as we lived as husband and wife but deep inside, we only lived as roommates.

Time passed by, something weird stirring my heart. I began to love his care, his kisses and hugs, his tender and everything about him. Even though I know it might not real and fake, but I love it anyway. All these feelings I had, I kept it alone, afraid that it was only me.

One day, his parents were away overseas for some outstation work for a week. I came home late from work, so I went straight to our room and cleaned myself. I wanted to drink a glass of water before going to bed, when a sudden blackout happened.

I knew my husband was home earlier than me even though I did not see him anywhere in our room or in the house. So I went outside and shouted for his name. He replied my shouts and asked me to follow the candles trails on the staircase and on the floor. Weirdly, I didn’t notice it was there before.

Nevertheless, I followed his instructions which led me outside the house and to the garden, where he set up a beautiful candle light dinner. I was shocked and surprised because his parents were away, so I began to wonder, to whom did him pretending to?

He led me to my seat and had me seated, and then he sat in front of me. He cooked me my favourite dish, and he treated me like a queen. We did not speak to each other until dinner was finished. Before I could say a word, he explained to me why he did all these surprises.

He fell in love with me, sometime after our marriage. Since, his care, his tender and loving act, was not pretending. He only did it in front of our parents because he was afraid I would rebel, as he knows I am a rebellious girl. But today, he said braved himself and confess to me. To his joy, I confessed to him too.

Returning from their trip, his parents said there was a glow in our faces, a glow that was never there before. We knew why but we tend to keep it to our little secrets. A few months after, I was told that I was pregnant. Our parents jumped overjoy because this would be their first grandchild ever. I am the first daughter while my husband is the only child.

I was taken care by both of my mother and mother-in-law. They banned me from doing any hard works and just let me to rest. The best part was, my husband got all the morning-sickness while I was just fine and craving for things. Seven and a half month later, I delivered my baby prematurely but healthy. It is a he and he is big. He weighed 4.2 kilograms when I had to deliver him. Who knows how big would he be if he was delivered on time?

My father-in-law was the happiest person when we break the news that my baby is a boy. He is the first child and his father and grandfather was the first child and he has a son as first and only child. And now, his son has a son as his first child. As a celebration to this, we let him named our child.

As a result, my son is Adam Danial. He is everyone’s love of life and he is cared and loved by all his aunts and uncles, grandfathers and grandmothers, and his beloved dad and mom. At the moment, I thought my life was perfect enough. I had understanding parents and family, wonderful parents-in-law, loving husband and cute son.

But life was never too wonderful to live. My husband was on a trip to Oslo when the plane he's on crashed in an ocean near Oslo. His body was never found, but so do the other passengers' bodies. The local policemen made a search for two weeks but they never found him and the others. Then, they announced that all of them are dead, seeing the situation in the ocean was freezing and cold. They could not survive even if they were not died in the crash.

I never remarried because to me, he lived in my heart.