All I have left of him is his scent, a fragile fragment of memory that I cradle in the palm of my hand. It’s a piece of cut cloth from what used to be our pillow, a relic of the days when our lives were intertwined, our dreams woven together in the fabric of our shared existence. Now, it’s all I have, wrapped in clear plastic to shield it from the ravages of time and the cruelty of the elements.

He has left behind a tangle inside of me, a knot of emotions and longing that will take years to unravel. But in this small piece of fabric, I find solace. With each breath, I inhale a little more of him, allowing his essence to seep into the very core of my being, mingling with my own until it becomes an inseparable part of me.

I long to be filled only with that unforgettable scent, to be saturated with the memories it holds—the smell of wood smoke, the taste of copper in my mouth from running until our legs trembled, the sensation of his strong hands enveloping my own clumsy limbs. These are the remnants of our love, the echoes of moments that still linger in the hollows of my heart.

Even now, I find myself gazing at the door, yearning for his return, hoping against hope that he will walk in and enfold me in his embrace once more. It’s been years, years spent loving and breathing for an invisible presence, a phantom that haunts the corridors of my soul.

I am a something, trying to become a nothing, so that the nothing that I dearly, dearly love can, if only for a fleeting moment, become something tangible once more. To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow—this is a human offering that can border on miraculous. It’s a testament to the resilience of the human heart, the capacity to love and long for a connection that transcends time and distance.

In the absence of his physical touch, I hold onto the intangible—the memories, the scent, the whispers of autumn at my windowsill. And in the quiet recesses of my soul, I carry the hope that love, in all its ethereal beauty, will find a way to breathe life into the spaces where longing resides.

From Madalena da Paz (the history of my grandmother—unfinished).

Copyright © Beatriz Esmer