"Let's fall in love first," the bridegroom told his bride on the wedding day, "and become husband and wife later."
It was an arranged marriage. The groom, a 23-year-old tax clerk, and the bride, a 20-year-old daughter of a school principal, met for the first time on that wedding day.
Luckily for them, they proved to be a good match. They did fall in love and become man and wife in the true sense of the words.
But their happiness was like a fleeting dream. It ended abruptly when the husband was taken away to a battlefield on a foreign land. Japan was at war.
The wife wrote him everyday. The husband managed to write back once a week.
"Today is our son's birthday. I prayed hard for your happiness."
"I'm imaging how our baby son is toddling."
His last letter was from New Guinea, where he probably died from a disease. His remains never came back.
The wife decided to remain a widow for the rest of her life and has never get married since. She is now 94 years old and writing letters to her dead husband every day.
"My dear. The plum in the backyard is giving off a wonderful scent. I know you are smelling it up there, aren't you?"
"Thanks to the fine weather, the laundry has dried pretty well. (snip) I remember how I sent you off on that train platform when you were departing for war. The scene comes to my mind in a vivid panoramic image."
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Every now and then, I encounter words that I treasure in my mind for a very long time. The quote in the first sentence is undoubtedly one of those words.
