“Love is dead”, he said.

“Love is a disease”, he said.

“Love does nothing for the world!”, he almost shouted.

I remember staring at the sunlight glistening on his dewy cheek while he kept saying all these things and wondering if he was really saying them or if I was imagining it all. I suddenly almost forced myself to think of my childhood, to somehow retrieve the exact feeling of being in my grandmother’s lap on a Sunday afternoon out in the verandah while pigeons surrounded her for a mix of seeds she fed them every day. I try to remember how it felt when her wrinkled wavering hands caressed my face.

I felt like everything I had lost in my entire life since my childhood had washed up in that very spot in front of him. I told myself, maybe if I just wait for a while and look into his eyes long enough; he would realize that love is not dead. He’d tear up, maybe smile. But it was all a fantasy. I had to let it be a fantasy. I never summoned the courage to let it become a reality.

I sit here now, looking into the horizon as the sun sets — and I imagine my grandmother as a tiny blurry figure out in the fields, feeding the pigeons, smiling, singing one of her melancholic poems in a soft shaky voice. And I imagine her looking into my eyes and saying, “Let no one tell you that love is dead. Let no one stop you from being a lover. Promise me you will keep love alive until your last breath. Promise me I will always have a home in your heart.”

And in a flash, I can’t see him anymore. He doesn’t exist.

But love does.