The bench by hospital.

Every morning at exactly 8:00 AM, an old man named Faizan would walk slowly down the same cracked pavement toward the city hospital. He carried a faded brown coat over one arm and a small, worn-out book tucked gently beneath the other. Rain or shine, summer or frost, he would arrive, take his seat on the wooden bench just outside the hospital entrance, and sit silently—watching, waiting, remembering.

To the doctors, nurses, and visitors who passed him daily, he was simply “The Bench Man.” A silent fixture. A mystery. Some assumed he was waiting for news, some thought he was grieving, but no one really knew. The hospital staff had grown used to him, offering a warm nod or a gentle smile. He never asked for anything. Never caused a disturbance. Just sat with eyes fixed on the revolving doors as if expecting someone to walk through them.

Faizan’s story, however, was one rooted in a love so deep that even time and memory couldn’t fully erase it.

Years earlier, he had been a schoolteacher—calm, articulate, and endlessly patient. His wife, Nayyara, was his opposite in all the right ways: lively, curious, and always laughing. They met young, married early, and spent four decades side by side. But life, cruel and quiet, changed one winter when Nayyara began forgetting things. First, it was small—misplacing keys, burning tea. Then she forgot names. Birthdays. Their anniversary. Eventually, she forgot him.

Doctors called it an aggressive form of early-onset dementia. Faizan called it a storm that was washing away the love of his life. But he didn’t leave. Not once. He gave up his teaching job to care for her full-time. He fed her, bathed her, read to her, and watched her fade—bit by bit—until even his face became unfamiliar to her.

Still, every morning, he would sit beside her and read poetry. Her favorite verses. She couldn’t remember the words, but something in her eyes would soften, and sometimes she would smile.

On the final day of her life, something remarkable happened. As he read her a poem about a red scarf and a rainy day—the same one he read to her the day he proposed—she blinked and said, very softly, “I remember… the red scarf… our first walk.” Just a flicker. Then the light was gone.

She passed that evening.

Since then, Faizan had returned to that same hospital bench every single day. It was the place he had last seen her. The place where a tiny spark of her love had briefly returned. He came not to mourn, but to honor her. To sit with the echo of the life they built. He continued to read the same poems aloud—not loudly, but just enough for the wind to hear. Perhaps, he believed, her soul still passed by now and then.

Many assumed he had no one left, but in truth, he had more love than most people could ever dream of. His love simply lived in the silence now.

One rainy evening, after a long day of shifts and emergency calls, a young nurse named Areeba noticed something different. The bench was empty. Faizan's coat was neatly folded beside a book of poetry, left in the same spot he always placed it. Tucked between its pages was a note, written in a hand trembling but strong:

> “If love had a shape, it would be a hand that never lets go—even when it’s empty.”



Faizan had passed quietly, peacefully, just as he had lived. The hospital held a small memorial. The staff placed a brass plaque on the bench that read:

> "In Memory of Faizan — who waited with love, long after goodbye."



No one ever sat there for long again. And when they did, they somehow sat a little straighter, a little quieter, feeling the weight of a love that still lingered in the wood, the wind, and the poetry left behind.