🍋 Lunch With Memories

✍️ By Subhasri Devaraj

A Love That Never Left

The park doesn’t change much. Same green bench. Same stretch of trees. Same hush in the air that follows her like a shadow.

Every Thursday at 12:45, she arrives. Two glass bottles. A brown cloth bag. A folded napkin that once had embroidered edges—faded now, but she still smooths it out like it matters.

Inside the bag: lemon rice. Mustard seeds crackle. The tang grips just right. She remembers the way he used to mix it with his fingers, take a bite, nod and say, “Perfect today.” He said that even when it wasn’t.

They’d sit here, lunch in hand, sunlight sneaking through branches. Sometimes he’d talk politics. Sometimes about the neighbor’s mango tree. Sometimes they didn’t talk at all.

She still talks. “I made extra today,” she says out loud, carefully unscrewing one bottle cap. No one answers. But she pauses anyway, like waiting for a smile.

He’s been gone five years. Cardiac arrest. No warning. Just a morning that stayed unfinished. She didn’t get to pack lunch that day.

Now she packs it every week. Not out of habit. Not grief. But because memory tastes better when shared.

The security guard once asked why she keeps coming back. She smiled and said, “Some seats don’t get empty. Some stories don’t end.”

She eats slowly. It’s not about food anymore. It’s about remembering. It’s about letting love stretch across time, across benches, across silence.

And when she’s done, she folds the napkin, places it back in the bag, tightens the caps—and walks home with her heart just a little bit lighter.

Video:

🧠 Disclaimer:

✋ No AI Here:
This blog post was written 100% by me, Subhasri Devaraj, without the use of AI writing tools.
Every word is real, personal, and written from scratch — just like a proper conversation over filter coffee. ☕
No bots. No auto-generated fluff. Just me, talking to you

⚠️ No content here is copied or auto-published. I don't post anything I wouldn’t say to a friend.

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