Folding Her Memory

I was folding her clothes again.

Not because they needed folding, no one was going to wear them anymore, but because I still didn’t know what else to do with my hands. Her maroon shawl smelled of Nivea cream and mustard oil. A strange combination. But that was her, soft skin and old winter oil rituals, chaos and comfort, all woven into one fabric. I held it close, pressing it into my face like it could bring her back, like scent could reverse time.

“Don’t fold it like that,” I heard her say. The voice wasn’t real, I knew that. But it had her tone. The mock sternness. That half-smile she wore even when correcting me.

I looked around. Empty room. Just the fan creaking slightly and the chai on the stove beginning to hiss.

Still, I said, “Toh aake karlo phir.”

(Then come and do it yourself.)

And for a moment, it felt like she might.

---

Four months. That’s how long it’s been. People stop counting after a while, but I don’t. Time didn’t just move forward; it moved away from her.

Earlier, evenings used to mean two cups of chai and some ridiculous argument about coriander, how she liked to sprinkle it raw while I hated its smell.

“Coriander is elegance,” she’d say, exaggerating her accent.

“It smells like wet socks,” I’d reply.

She would flick my forehead gently and say, “Tera taste hi bhatak gaya hai.”

(Your taste has completely lost its way.)

Now, evenings are one cup and one silence. Still, at 6:15, my hands automatically reach for the second cup.

Every. Single. Day.

---

She didn’t leave me.

She just... left.

One moment, she was holding my wrist, laughing about the sugar in her tea. The next, she had fallen. Just collapsed like someone had pulled her string from the back.

I’d screamed her name, slapped her cheeks, spilled water over her head while my own hands shook so much I couldn’t tell if it was raining or just me. It was a brain aneurysm, they said. Quick. Painless.

I remember staring at the doctor and wanting to ask him how he knew.

Did he feel what her hand felt like when it went cold in mine?

Did he hear the unfinished sentence stuck in her throat?

Painless. What a cruel word.

---

I didn’t cry at the hospital. I held her earrings in my palm like a broken promise and signed every form without blinking. The man at the cremation ground asked if I wanted to say something.

I said no.

Because what could I say that hadn’t already died with her?

But grief is tricky. It doesn’t show up when people expect it. It comes later. In ridiculous ways. In socks, she tucked them into the wrong drawer. In the half-used shampoo bottle. In her Spotify login, that suddenly played Kahin Toh Hogi Woh from the speaker on a Wednesday afternoon.

That was the first time I collapsed. Right there in the kitchen. On the cold floor. Holding the edge of the dining table like it was her hand.

---

“Tum mujhe bhool toh jaaoge, lekin aaraam se nahi,” she had once whispered into my neck. I remember the night, the fan was on, we were fighting about something stupid, and suddenly she hugged me from behind and said that.

You don’t forget words like that. They tattoo themselves somewhere you can’t reach.

And now, in the late hours of the night, when the fan still hums and the door creaks ever so slightly, I sometimes hear her voice again. Soft. Real.

“Switch off the light na... tumhe pata hai mujhe neend nahi aati jab tube light jalti hai.”

(Turn off the light, you know I can’t sleep with this tube light on.)

And sometimes, God help me, I switch it off.

---

People say grief fades.

It doesn’t. It only stops asking for attention. It finds a corner in your life and sits there like an old tenant, quiet, permanent.

There are days when I hate her.

For leaving.

For not fighting.

For making me carry this alone.

Jitna tujhse ishq tha, utni hi nafrat bhi hone lagi hai ab.

(As much as I loved you, I’ve started to hate you now.)

But even hate is a form of holding on.

Because this damn heart, kam-bakht is dil, she wasn’t just a stubborn memory. She was a need. A necessity. A breath.

Zidd bhi thi. Zarurat bhi.

So I fold her shawl one more time. Not because it needs folding. But because I still don’t know what else to do with my hands.