“I think the crowd is going to increase. We might need to place barricades on both ends of the street,” a police officer said urgently into his walkie-talkie, his voice edged with concern. “We need few more policemen here. It's getting difficult to manage the crowd.”

The scorching April heat was almost becoming unbearable intensifying the tensed atmosphere. The entire place was filled with the sound of murmurs, shuffling feet, sad faces. I walked slowly, the weight of the long garland in my hands feeling heavier with every step. It wasn’t just the physical weight that slowed me—it was the emotional burden of what I was about to face. My heart felt like a stone sinking deeper into the ocean of grief.

Someone tapped my shoulder gently. I turned around to see a familiar face, her eyes red and glistening.

“Girija,” she said softly before hugging me. “I know this must be incredibly hard for you,” she whispered into my ear with her face pressed against my shoulder.

Tears started rolling down my cheeks because this really was an irreplacable loss. A hollow in my chest that no words could ever fill. The man I had once lived with, loved, argued with, and ultimately left after fifteen long years was no longer alive.

He was gone. Forever.

With the tears came something else too—a slow, creeping fear. Would people start blaming me? Whispering about how I had walked away? Would they think I brought this upon him? Guilt clenched my heart in its sharp grip. I shouldn't have left like that, so abruptly, with so much anger. How do I face everyone now?

These thoughts were running through my mind like a storm as I stepped into the house. Inside, it was surprisingly quiet, almost unnaturally so. The kind of silence that screamed louder than any noise. People were standing in clusters, watching me as I entered, their faces painted with pity and grief.

As I moved toward the inner room, a few of Abhi’s relatives were seated near his body. Upon seeing me, they rose silently, parting to let me through. The path to him felt like the longest walk of my life.

“Girija, look at him. Look at Abhi, your so-called imperfect husband. He’s no more,” his mom came towards me saying these words and it was actually like cutting my heart into peices.

Those words shattered me.

I dropped to my knees next to him, unable to hold back the sobs any longer. I cried from a place so deep within me, I didn’t even know it existed. My body shook with the weight of all the emotions I had suppressed for years—anger, regret, sorrow, and above all, love. The man lying there, cold and still, was once the center of my world.

To the world, Abhi was a successful CEO, infact his dream was to startup and run a successful company which he actually did. He was always been the charming, witty, kind man everyone adored.  The kind of person who walked into a room and filled it with light. But to me, he had been something different—complicated, frustrating, and deeply flawed. Our marriage had not been a fairytale. It had been real, raw, and riddled with imperfections.

“There are a zillion more important things in life to worry about,” he used to say whenever I pointed out his forgetfulness or the little things that made me feel unseen. “Fighting over this is silly.”

Maybe to him, it was silly. To me, it never was.

Every time he forgot to turn off the bathroom light, or left the door unlocked, or failed to pick up the grocery items I had reminded him about countless times—it felt like a message. A message that my efforts, my reminders, my role in our shared life didn’t matter. And every time I tried to talk about it, every time I tried to make him understand how these small things piled up, he brushed it off. And then he'd kiss me on the forehead, and somehow, all the anger would melt away—at least for a while.

But love, I learned, is not always enough.

Over time, those little imperfections transformed into something bigger. They became sources of daily frustration. Tiny cracks that slowly widened until the foundation of our marriage began to crumble. And one day, everything just exploded. Words were said that couldn’t be taken back. Decisions were made in the heat of emotion. And I left.

Infact things blew up because of me-- I still remember making fun and doubting his capabilities of running a company when he was not able to do basic things at home (ofcourse I was proven wrong only in this) and that was the time he said he wanted a divorce, even though most of the blame was on him. And in a moment of pride and exhaustion, I said yes. I thought I'd feel free without him. I imagined a life where I wasn’t nagging or repeating myself. A life where I came first. And for a while, I convinced myself it was the right choice.

But was it?

The initial days after the separation were brutally quiet. The silence wasn’t peaceful—it was oppressive. I moved through life like a shadow of myself. I still went to work, still cooked, still laughed when required—but there was a hole inside me. A vast, echoing hole where our shared life had once been.

I often found myself checking WhatsApp, staring at his last seen timestamp. Imagining what he might be doing. Wondering if he had moved on. I half-expected him to remarry—to find someone who didn’t care about whether he locked the door or remembered to switch off the lights.

But he didn’t.

After 5 years today, never imagined I will stand infront of his lifeless body lying in front of me, his brother quietly told me it was a massive heart attack. Just like that, his heart had given up. He had been living alone for the past few years, never remarried, never truly moved on. And I wasn’t there. Not when he needed someone. Not when he was struggling. Not when he died.

I looked around the house, my eyes landing on the walls, and that’s when I saw them—notes. Dozens of handwritten reminders stuck on walls, doors, and cabinets.

“Switch off the lights.”
“Remember to buy milk and eggs.”
“Lock the front door before sleeping.”
“Don’t forget to close the tap.”

They were everywhere. Each note was like a whisper from the past, echoing all the things I had once said to him—over and over again. At some point, he had tried. Really tried. To become the man I wanted him to be. And I wasn't there to see it.

I broke down again, this time more quietly, more painfully. I crouched beside him, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead, and whispered through my tears, “Come on, Abhi… let’s fight again. Say something sarcastic, roll your eyes at my to-do list, or pretend to forget just to annoy me. Anything. Just don’t lie there like this.”

I kissed his forehead gently. “There’s nothing in you that needed forgiving. If anything, forgive me. Forgive me for walking away. For demanding perfection when all you wanted was peace. For expecting you to be a machine instead of a man.”

I stood there in silence for a moment longer, taking one final look at the man I had once built a life with. And then I whispered, “You were right Abhi, there are a zillion of things to worry and todays incident is an example. It’s okay to be imperfect, Abhi. I see that now. I really do.”

As I turned to leave, I felt the weight of those words settle inside me—not like a burden, but like a quiet truth. A truth I had spent years refusing to see. A truth that had cost me more than I was ready to admit.

I walked out of the room, my heart broken, but strangely lighter. The grief would remain. The regrets, too. But so would the love.

"Being imperfect is the beauty of life" I murmured as I left the place and that was enough.