She Read His Obituary Before He Died

She Read His Obituary Before He Died

Written by Muskan

Maya had always started her mornings the same way since she turned 30 — strong coffee, soft music, and the local newspaper spread across the small wooden kitchen table her grandmother once owned. It was her ritual, grounding her in a world that sometimes felt too fast, too loud, and too fleeting.

But nothing in the pages ever prepared her for what she saw that Wednesday morning.

“Dr. Jonathan Hale, 68, passed peacefully on Tuesday evening. A revered linguistics professor and poet, Jonathan spent his final years quietly, often spotted in the garden of his family estate, book in hand…”

Maya stopped reading. Her throat tightened. She blinked once. Twice.

No.

Her heart refused to believe what her eyes read.

Jonathan Hale was not dead. He couldn’t be. He was alive just yesterday. She knew this because she had seen him — with her own eyes — walking down the cobbled path near the university’s old fountain. His steps were slow, sure, his coat too large for his frame but familiar. She had almost called out his name. Almost.

Instead, she had stood still, silent, as he passed.

And now he was dead?

She folded the newspaper slowly, like she feared it might scream if handled wrong. Her hands trembled. Her coffee had gone cold.

There had always been something mysterious about Jonathan Hale. When she took his poetry class ten years ago, she had been mesmerized by his presence — tall, quiet, eyes like fading ink, and a voice that carried sadness like it was a song. He rarely smiled, but when he did, it was like winter sun—brief, beautiful, and almost apologetic.

Maya was one of his favorite students, though he never said it aloud. He showed it in smaller ways — a poem returned with more notes than others, a rare compliment scrawled in the margins, and once, a hand-written letter praising a piece she wrote about time and loss.

And then, one day, he vanished.

He stopped teaching. His office was emptied without notice. Rumors whispered that his wife had passed and that grief had consumed him whole. Others said he simply decided the world had taught him enough sorrow. No one knew for sure. But Maya never stopped wondering.

And now she held his obituary in her hands. The final line read:

“He leaves behind no children, but countless students who carry his words.”

A tear fell onto the printed page, smearing the ink.

That evening, against her better judgment, Maya made her way to the estate listed in the obituary. She didn’t know what she hoped to find. Closure? A final goodbye? Perhaps a glimpse of the garden where he spent his last days?

The house stood just as she imagined — regal but tired, its paint faded and windows large and knowing. The front door was slightly ajar.

Her heart pounded as she stepped in.

“Hello?” she called softly.

Silence answered.

She walked past the threshold, following the faint scent of old paper and lavender. The living room was lined with books, and in the corner sat a record player, spinning nothing but static.

Then, from the garden, she heard a soft cough.

Maya froze.

She stepped outside slowly.

There he was.

Jonathan Hale.

Alive.

Alive.

Sitting on a worn bench beneath a cherry blossom tree, a book in hand. He looked older, thinner, but unmistakably himself.

She gasped audibly.

He looked up.

Their eyes met.

A pause.

Then he smiled — faint, knowing.

“Miss Rivera,” he said, voice softer than she remembered, but still laced with poetic rhythm. “You read it, didn’t you?”

“The obituary?” she whispered. “I… I don’t understand…”

He patted the bench beside him. She sat, breathless, confused, and heart racing.

“I wrote it,” he said plainly. “Months ago.”

“Why?”

“To see who still remembered me. To know if I mattered.”

“That’s—crazy. It’s… cruel.”

He nodded. “Yes. But solitude does strange things to a man.”

She looked at him. “You’re not forgotten. You never were.”

He turned to her, and for the first time in a decade, she saw something break in his eyes. Not sadness. Not madness. Just a deep, echoing loneliness.

“I just wanted one person to come,” he said.

“You got one,” Maya said softly.

They sat there for hours, talking about poems and pain, memory and time. The stars came out, unapologetically bright.

When she left, he gave her a small notebook — filled with poems he never published. “For when I’m really gone,” he said.

Three months later, the real obituary came. This time, there was no mistake.

But she wasn’t mourning anymore.

She was remembering.

And through the ink of his words, he lived.