Give me time

It was the kind of day where the sun came and went like a somewhat fickle friend. The clouds drifted slowly across the sky, and light and shadow played over the paths. The wind lightly tugged at the trees along the water, as if it just wanted to remind them of its existence. It smelled faintly of dry leaves and freshly cut grass, with a hint of earth – as if the ground was exhaling after the rain that fell the night before.

He had, as usual, set out on his morning walk around the water in the middle of the park – a round trip he had taken almost every day for the past few years. The legs found their rhythm on their own now. He felt the steady turns of the path, the crunching under his shoes, and the quiet reassurance of knowing that he would soon reach the coziest side of the park. There, with his back to the wind and a view of the still water, stood a row of benches – and on one of them, Rosa often sat.

They had met there a little over a year ago, completely by chance. He had sat down to rest. She had already been sitting there for a while, with a book she wasn't reading. The conversation between them arose naturally, almost imperceptibly. Nothing big, just a question about the weather, a comment about a dog running by. But since then, it had developed into a kind of rhythm. Not an agreement. Not a promise. But a pattern. Same bench. Same time. Sometimes they talked for a long time. Other times, it was just a few words, some nods, a silence they shared and left as it was.

Rosa was already sitting on the bench when he approached. She had her scarf loosely tied around her neck, and her hands rested calmly in her lap, as if they had all the time in the world. She sat with her upper body slightly bent forward, as if she were listening – to the water, the wind, or perhaps just to her own thoughts. When she saw him come around the bend with steady steps, she felt the same little lift in her heart. A breath of joy. Not big, but genuine.

He nodded to her as he sat down next to her. Not too close, not too far away. Just right.

It took maybe a minute before Rosa, with a soft silence in her voice, said:

– Today I've been thinking about time, she said, without looking at him.

He didn't answer right away. He knew that she liked to start a thought and let it wander. She didn't need to be interrupted.

– I heard a song this morning. It had a line I can't get out of my head: "Colours in my tears / Change throughout the years." Isn't it strange how grief changes color?

She said it almost in a whisper, as if she were tasting the words again.

– Before, sorrow was blue. Heavy, cold, deep. Now it is something else. Still damp, still present, but perhaps more like gray mist. It wraps around the memories without suffocating them.

She smiled faintly.

– I believe our tears carry pigments from what we have lived. Each color is a trace – of something we have loved, feared, lost, or hoped for. And maybe… maybe it's a good thing that they change. That means we do too.

He could nod.

– Maybe that's how we know we are still alive. Not by laughing every day, but by noticing that what we cry over changes shape.

He looked at her, perhaps a bit surprised. Not because the words were strange, but because they struck something in him.

– Not disappearing, she added. – Doesn't disappear, she added. – Just changes tone. Bare changes tone.

She slowly turned towards him. Her eyes were clear, her voice firm yet gentle.

– I think about those years when everything hurt. Everything was dark. Now… I don't know. It's still there. But it has become something else. Something I can hold in my hand without pulling away. Without feeling fear touch it.

He nodded, and they sat in silence for a while, as if they both felt what it meant to hold the grief—not to analyze it, but to acknowledge it.

– What kind of time do you want now? he asked eventually.

She shrugged and smiled faintly.

– Not more, necessarily. Just... maybe more space in the one I already have.

They both laughed, low and warm. There was something true in it. Something simple and human.

– I feel like everything needs to be filled all the time, she said. – Days, thoughts, refrigerators. Days, thoughts, refrigerator. Not to mention my friend, the TV. It fills me up and steals my time as soon as I turn it on. There is so little room left just to be.

A woman with a stroller walked by. The child was sleeping. Both followed her with their eyes before their gaze returned to the water.

– That, Rosa said quietly. – It's a time you think will last forever.

He nodded.

– And then one day you wake up, and they've moved out.

She smiled.

– I used to push my two around just like that. Long walks. Not just to get them to sleep, but to get myself to endure. There was a lot of love, but also a lot of chaos.

– I remember it well, he said. – That feeling of being needed all the time. It was beautiful. But exhausting too.

– And then… suddenly they don't need you in the same way anymore, she said. – At first, it feels like freedom. But it passes quickly. It becomes a void that you don't quite know how to fill.

– I tried gardening, he said with a laugh. – And learning French. It mostly turned into coffee and crossword puzzles.

– I started writing, she said. – Not for anyone. Just for me. Thoughts, memories. And poems. Many bad poems. But it helped.

– Do you think we were good parents? he suddenly asked.

She thought for a moment before she answered.

– I think we were present. And that might be the most important thing. Not doing everything right. But being there.

He looked out over the water, which was now rippling in small circles after a gentle breeze.

– Can you believe it started like this – with a few little kicks from the inside and sleepy eyes over a crib? And now we sit here talking about fireflies and time.

– Maybe that's exactly what time is, she said. – A circle. Or a spiral. Not gone. Just in a new form.

Then it became quiet again. And it was then that she said it, almost softly, as if to herself:

– There was another part of the song too. Before all the poetic stuff.

He turned towards her.

– "I can't tell the difference between the two / It's all the same to me."

She repeated it slowly, with a small sigh.

– I think that's what happens when you've lived long enough. When you've seen both jubilation and downfall, suddenly it's not so easy to know what's what. Joy can resemble vulnerability. Grief can resemble calm.

– I think it's that feeling you get when everything starts to blur a bit. When what used to matter no longer stands out. When you've seen too much, perhaps.

He looked at her and nodded, as if she had captured something he had never been able to put into words himself.

– It's as if the boundaries between things are being erased, he said. – As if we no longer need to put everything in the right box. It just… is.

– Yes. Maybe it's not as important anymore to know what is right or wrong, dark or light. Maybe the most important thing is that we feel it living within us. That something is still stirring.

– Like colors in tears, he said quietly. – They change, but they are still ours.

She smiled, and in her eyes there was not resignation, but a kind of tenderness over how unclear and beautiful life can actually be.

He nodded.

– I can relate to that. Sometimes it feels like everything is at a standstill, and the days pass by without color.

– And that line: “I can’t know what you’re thinking.”

She looked down.

– It made me think of my children. The grandchildren. I don't always understand them. They speak a language I don't always hear. Not because they are gone from me. But because… I think I have become a bit invisible to them. A bit behind glass.

– "Too late, too far behind," he said quietly. – I've felt it too.

She looked up, but the smile returned, soft.

– And yet, "Life is a state of mind." That's what keeps me going. That everything depends on how we choose to see it. What we pay attention to. What we let in.

He didn't say anything, but he felt that what she said settled somewhere in him.

– I used to lie under the sky when I was a child, she continued, – and talk to fireflies. They answered me, you know. I blink.

– Why did you quit?

– Because I thought that's how it was supposed to be. That you outgrew it. We stop doing such things. And then we think it's adulthood.

– I also talked to everything, he said. – Trees, stones, the wind. Trees, stones, the wind. Everything had a voice.

– We think we become adults, she said. – Maybe we just stop listening.

She sat for a while and twisted the ring on her finger. A simple gold ring, worn, but beautiful. Maybe one that had been through a lot.

– I've noticed something, she said. – Every time a fear comes and goes, it takes a bit of the sorrow with it. Not always. But sometimes.

She looked down into her lap before lifting her gaze again.

– With each fear that passes… my sorrow disappears. Not completely, but it fades. Loses its grip.

– There's one more line I liked, she said. – "No lesson here."

– That's the opposite of everything we hear, he replied. – That we always have to learn, grow, understand.

– I don't think everything has a meaning, she said calmly. – Some things are just meant to be experienced.

She waited a moment before continuing. Her eyes rested on the water's surface, as if she were waiting for an answer there.

– Like a silence that lasts a little longer than you thought you needed.

She lifted her hand weakly, brushed over the scarf around her neck.

– Like sitting next to someone without having to explain why you're there.

A small laugh. Not loud, but genuine.

– Maybe it's enough that it exists. That it touches, and then slips away.

– It feels a bit like a liberation, he said.

– That's exactly what it is, she said, smiling.

After a while, she looked at the clock. There was nowhere she had to be, but she liked to finish things while they still had a bit of spark.

– I'm not going to hold you back, she said.

– No, he replied. – But I hadn't thought it through properly yet.

She nodded. So they sat a bit longer.

Not like two people waiting for something. Just like two who had understood that time didn't always have to be used. Sometimes it could just be shared.

After a while, he stands up and politely says goodbye. Then he adds:

– Sometimes we have to say goodbye to each other to understand how deeply our souls need each other, and in every farewell lies the promise of a new meeting.

She smiled back warmly, and inside her, a thought formed that she didn't say out loud:

That it's not always necessary to have a conclusion.

That sometimes it's enough just to say:

Give me time.