A graveyard on the way to my grandparents’ home was where I first learned about love. With tall green trees and wild shrubs, it looked like a patch of forest, fenced in the middle of the city.

When I was 12, I thought it was an unkempt garden. At some point, after that, I noticed the gravestones. But the reality of the land grew deeper roots in my consciousness when I saw a group grieving around a grave.

My grandfather was a dark short man with silver shoulder-length hair and a beard that covered his neck. He pointed at a grieving man and said, “That man loved his wife very much. She died last night. One day, whether we want to or not, everyone will be carried in there on four shoulders. But until that day, live a purposeful life. Find someone to be a witness to your life and you be a witness to theirs.”

The word witness stuck to me, but I understood its significance much later.

The city dwellers paid little to no attention to the graveyard. Rickshaws honked in a hurry, people ran to catch their buses, tea stalls were crowded with men covered in a cloud of smoke, and small business owners scrolled through their phones until a customer walked in.

The dichotomy of a still graveyard in a boisterous city painted an unforgettable picture in my mind. And, when my grandmother was laid to rest in a corner, under the shade of an old tree with full leaves, that graveyard and I were connected.

While grieving her loss, I saw my grandfather slowly turn into a stone sculpture. And a decade after my grandmother’s death, my grandfather was taken to rest in the very graveyard on a cold January morning. That night I found his worn-out diary hidden between folded blankets in his vintage almirah.

My grandfather had Parkinson’s disease. His once calligraphic handwriting became progressively worse.

In his last entry on October 23  2015, the sentences were illegible. His handwriting looked like a straight-line graph of shivers.

The frustration of being unable to write was marked by his tear droplets that smudged the black ink in different spots.  

I opened a random legible page and read. It was an entry about how much his wife changed since the inoperable brain tumor diagnosis. He loved a woman who didn’t remember him.

The purpose served by his diary became apparent with my grandfather’s gradual loss of memory. It was an attempt to remember my grandmother as she was.

He painted a riveting picture of her with words. He wrote about her as a new bride, as his best friend, as his partner, as a mother, and in her last days, as a stranger. But he went on to write at great lengths about my grandmother as his witness.

He wrote, she could tell you who I am better than I ever could. With her around, I felt seen. I felt heard. I lived. I’m not sure how much of me is left anymore.

Overwhelmed with the pain of a grieving man, who I knew, but knew so little of, I closed the diary. His words echoed in my mind. His pen, shivering between his thick ashy fingers, flashed before my eyes. The thought of his teary eyes brought tears to mine.

He was a grieving man who had lost the witness to his life…his wife and I… was an invisible married woman.

A few days later, on a chilly afternoon, it rained unexpectedly. The leaves were bright green with new life. The smell of earth from the garden brought with it memories from my childhood when I spent hours playing in the garden. The paper boats set sail to nowhere in the puddle. And, I was alone. But all of it brought me more joy than I had felt in the last five years.

The next day, I signed the divorce papers my husband had sent over. To be alone was scary. But to be lonely, like I had been in my marriage, was unacceptable. I knew I would learn to be happy alone, eventually.

I took baby steps. I flew out to Morocco. It was my first solo trip and I recorded every pivotal moment in pictures and videos. My family, diary, photos, and videos recorded my life. I began to live.

At 43 years of age, I sat opposite a financial analyst for our third date and I saw him. He wanted to be there. And, he saw me too. He was an unimpressive nerd and I wanted to bear witness to his life.

I shared a story from my childhood and he laughed loudly. With a palm on his chest, he said, “I need the details!” and I knew, I found my witness.