THE PINK WEDDING DRESS

MY LAST LETTER TO MY LOVER

To him,

Masoyina (my love), I remembered the first time you told me your favorite color was white. I laughed because my favorite color was black. It still is.

You loved white because it was a sign of purity, a sign of hope and beauty.

I loved black because it was the perfect description of my life before I met you. It was the color that any man’s heart became after they met me. I thought I would stain your heart as well, but instead, you cleansed mine with your pure and beautiful spirit.

Our wedding day was the day I knew that love was not a verbal or action word. It was a being word. It was who someone was, not a performance. And you, masoyina, were love. You still are, even though you are not here with me. I know that because you are wearing white clothes in heaven now. 

I pray your skin in heaven is not as pale and old as the day you died. I pray it’s as handsome as you were on that wedding day, the day you chose to wear white suit because I couldn’t wear white for my wedding.

I wore a pink wedding dress to my wedding because I was not a virgin. Remember the 60s? When non-virgins were not allowed to wear white for their wedding? It was a tough world back then. But you made it bearable because you were not like the other men.

You did not scorn at me when I told you I had slept with three men before you. Instead, you thanked me for not being a hypocrite like the other women who cut themselves to fake their virginity on their wedding night. 

You celebrated me when I wore the pink wedding dress. You danced till the sunset even though only five people came for the wedding. You didn’t care that everybody rejected our invitation because I wore a pink wedding dress. It wasn’t the wedding that mattered to you, it was everything after.

On our wedding night, you made love to me like you had slept with a thousand women before me. You insisted that you were a virgin but every touch and every thrust you made felt like you had been in this moment before because you were just so good at it.

Kai, my frail old body still lingers for your touch even if you’ve been gone for seven years.

Of course, there were many days I got tired of your touch and your thrusts. But one thing I never got weary of was your warm skin against mine in the cold nights. Your skin was my blanket. Not even the cold harmattan weather could overpower your warmth.

I missed you, masoyina. I missed you so much that I pray to die every day to be with you in heaven.

Not even heaven can contain our love. It lasted an entire lifetime. And in another life, I will choose you over and over again.

Being in love with you made me question the love I had for my past lovers. Did I really love them? Or did I learn the true meaning of love when I met you?

The answer is definitely the latter. Because only true love had pushed me to go through dangerous limits for you.

Because our love was the perfect description of danger. The perfect description of a forbidden love that came without a vow.

As I made a vow to your brother on that wedding day, I stared right at you standing behind him in your glistening white suit. You were his best man, but in my heart, you were my groom.

You danced with me all through the wedding because my husband was too ashamed to dance with his non-virgin bride. He said there was nothing to celebrate with a “damaged good”.

You never once called me a damaged good. You looked at me like I was the most beautiful diamond you had ever bought.

When my husband went to bed on our wedding night, it was you who caressed me that night. It was you who made love to me like no other man did.

You were a better man than your older brother. You gave me all the love that he could never give me. Our marriage was an arranged marriage, but with you in it, it was an arranged destiny. 

You chose to live under the same roof as your brother and I all through our marriage because marrying your brother meant marrying you. You knew that too even though we never spoke about it.

I missed those nights I would sneak to your room, or we would sneak to the kitchen to taste each other’s heaven. I missed those moments when you, me and my husband ate breakfast on the table, and you will gently slide your hand to hold mine under the table.

I missed how you kissed my husband’s children on the cheeks because you knew they were yours and not his.

You waited more than 40 years for my love. You waited 40 years for you to be called ‘mine’. 

And so, fate made that dream a reality when my husband caught us one rainy night in the kitchen. When he heard how loud I screamed your name when you were inside of me. Something he could never do, not even a whisper escaped my lips when he was inside of me.

That night, he had a heart attack and he died right before our eyes. But that didn’t stop you from mating me harder. We continued making love until sunrise when we took my husband to the hospital to be declared dead.

Many mourned his death believing he died of heart attack due to stress and old age. But only you and I knew the truth. Only you and I kept the secret to our grave.

We got married shortly after. I was finally yours. No one could fight against our marriage because tradition permitted me as my husband’s wife to marry his brother after his death. It was the only time I supported tradition over morality.

You waited your whole life for this. And I was served to you in a golden platter.

Our marriage lasted for only seven years before you were gone. But those seven years in your arms was worth more than a thousand years with your brother. 

This is my last letter to you, masoyina. I am dressed in my pink wedding dress about to take my last breath. The next time you will hear from me is when I stand before you.

I won’t stand before you as your brother’s wife. Or your seven-year bride.

I will be standing before you as your lover for eternity. 

But this time, in a white wedding dress.

With Love,

Your Soon-To-Be Angel <3

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. All characters, locations, organizations and incidents appearing in this article are fictitious.

Follow my Instagram page @hjthestoryteller for more updates on my blog.