You Never Asked If I Did

A lesson in silence, and the man who wasn’t curious enough to stay

I asked if I could write about him.

He said yes. I said I might.

And then I did.

Not to embarrass him. Not to expose anything.

But because I write what I feel.

Because writing is how I breathe through the ache and the wonder of being alive.

Because that brief time — those barefoot days and star-lit conversations — stirred something. Not enough, perhaps, but something.

But he never asked if I did.

Not once.

Not even out of polite curiosity.

Not, “Did you end up writing about me?”

Not, “Can I read it?”

Not even, “What do you write about, really?”

And I realized:

Some people don’t want to know you.

They want to be near you.

Close enough to enjoy your light.

But not so close that they’re required to understand what keeps the fire burning.

There’s a kind of silence that reveals everything.

Not the comfortable kind — the kind that says, “I don’t really want to go deeper.”

And I’ve lived too long and walked too far to beg for someone to care enough to ask.

I am not just the woman you spent carefree days with.

I am a library of stories.

A caravan of memory and meaning.

I am someone’s grandmother.

I am someone’s grief.

I am someone’s miracle.

And I will not shrink my life into a postcard for a man who doesn’t ask what’s written on the back.

So, yes — I wrote about you.

Not because you were unforgettable.

But because you were a mirror.

You showed me what I will never settle for again.

And to the one who might still come:

Ask me about my words. Ask me where I’ve been.

Ask me what my favourite sound is when I’m alone with the wind.

Ask me what makes me cry when no one’s looking.

And ask me if I’ve written about you — then pray the answer is yes.

Nomadic Grandmother