The rain had calmed, but the world still smelled like tears.
After standing for what felt like hours in front of her tombstone — Precious Mensah, The Beloved Daughter, Wife, and Mother — I finally forced myself to breathe normally again. The stone was a simple one. No fancy carvings, no golden decorations, just her name and a sentence beneath it:
"She Loved Deeply, Even in Silence."
That line alone could break a man.
I brushed the rain from my face — pretending it was only rain and not everything else leaking out — and stepped away. Every footstep felt heavy, like the earth didn't want to release me yet. The cemetery was quiet, painfully quiet. The kind of quiet that forces you to hear the things you've avoided for years.
I walked toward the old iron gate, the one that creaked like it was older than time. The rain had soaked the ground, and the mud clung to my shoes as if telling me, Stay a little longer… stay with her. But staying wouldn't change anything. Staying wouldn't bring her back.
And so I walked.
But the moment I crossed the boundary between the dead and the living — I heard voices.
Children's voices.
A boy and a girl sat under a mango tree near the cemetery wall. The tree was so full, its leaves hung like a curtain, catching drops of leftover rain. They looked like siblings — the boy serious and quiet, the girl lively and a little too curious for her own good.
The girl was the first to notice me. She stood abruptly, almost slipping on the wet grass.
"Excuse me, sir!" she called out, waving both arms dramatically.
Her voice cut through the quiet like a bright color splashed on a black-and-white photo.
I blinked, unsure if she was talking to me. But she was staring directly at me with wide eyes, so I nodded slightly.
She walked closer. The boy followed, slower, more cautious.
"Why were you standing in the rain like that?" she asked loudly. "You looked like those actors in sad movies."
The boy gasped and pinched her arm. "Ama! You don't talk to adults any how!"
She rolled her eyes. "Please. He didn't die. He's still standing there."
Their back-and-forth almost made me smile, but my heart was still too heavy to fully cooperate.
"It's okay," I said gently. My voice cracked without my permission. "I… I was visiting someone important."
The boy nodded. "Your wife?"
I nearly stumbled. "What—? No."
"Your mother?" the girl guessed.
"No," I answered again, softer this time. "Not my mother."
The girl tilted her head. "Then who was she?"
I meant to answer casually, something simple, something neutral. But the words came out of me like a confession.
"She was… someone I loved. A long time ago."
The girl blinked, then stepped closer. Something about her face — her eyes, her smile, even the way her hair curled slightly behind her ears — made my heart stop.
She looked like Precious.
Not just similar.
Not just a little bit.
She looked exactly like her when she was thirteen.
My breath caught in my throat and stayed there.
The girl didn't notice my silence. She simply smiled — that same soft, warm, innocent smile Precious used to give without knowing its power.
"Was she your first love?" she asked.
Her voice — the tone, the lightness, the curiosity — it was too familiar.
Too close.
Too much.
In that moment, my vision blurred. The world doubled. The girl's face turned into her face.
Precious at thirteen, smiling at me from across a classroom, sunlight touching her cheek.
Before I could stop it… tears filled my eyes.
The girl's expression softened when she noticed. She took a step closer and touched my hand gently.
"Please don't cry," she whispered, and the whisper was so identical to Precious that it felt like time folding.
I closed my eyes and let one tear fall. Just one. But it carried the weight of years.
"Sorry," I said shakily. "You… you remind me of her. Very much."
The boy frowned. "Our mother?"
I shook my head quickly. "No, no. Not your mother. Someone from my past."
The girl studied my face with surprising maturity for her age. "You must really miss her."
I swallowed hard. "More than I can ever explain."
The children exchanged a glance, then sat back under the mango tree. The girl patted the space beside her.
"Come and sit," she said. "You need it."
The boy nodded reluctantly. "We won't bite."
For some reason, those simple words broke the last piece of resistance in me.
So I walked toward them and sat on the wet ground — a grown man in dirty trousers, surrounded by the ghosts of memories.
The girl leaned in closer, eyes bright. "Tell us about her. If she made you cry like that, her story must be serious."
I laughed — a shaky, broken laugh — but a laugh nonetheless.
"You two don't even know me."
"We know enough," the girl said confidently. "You had a love."
She counted with her fingers. "You lost her. You're sad. And you need to talk."
The boy shrugged. "Makes sense to me."
Children are blunt in a way adults forget how to be.
I inhaled, feeling the damp air fill my lungs. For a moment, I hesitated. Telling strangers your heartbreak isn't normal. But grief has a strange way of leading you to exactly the people you never expected.
"Her name was Precious," I finally said.
Both children went silent, as if the name itself demanded quiet.
I looked down at my hands, the raindrops drying slowly on my skin.
"When I met her, I was around your age. Thirteen. Awkward. Scared of everything. Especially girls. My confidence was hiding somewhere far away… and so were my WASSCE grades."
The girl laughed softly. "Same with my brother. He's also scared of girls."
"Ei! Ama!" the boy shouted, embarrassed.
I chuckled. "Don't worry. You'll grow out of it… or maybe not."
He looked offended, which somehow warmed my heart.
But then the girl leaned forward, her eyes — Precious' eyes — staring straight into mine.
"What was she like?" she asked quietly.
My chest tightened.
"She was…"
I searched for the right words.
"…warm. Soft. Kind. Funny without trying. She didn't walk into a room, she floated. She had the type of smile that made you forgive the world."
The girl smiled unconsciously, as if imagining it.
"She was someone I loved loudly," I added, "but never told."
The boy raised a brow. "Why?"
I sighed deeply. "Because fear is louder than love when you're young. And sometimes… even when you're old."
The girl nodded sympathetically. "My brother is also afraid to talk to—"
"Ama!" he shouted again.
She ignored him completely. "Did she like you too?"
That question felt like someone gently pressing a bruise.
"She smiled at me," I said. "She talked to me sometimes. We grew close. But… life didn't go the way stories do."
They fell quiet.
The girl looked at me, her expression softer now, more reflective. "So you came here to say goodbye?"
I shook my head slowly. "No. I came here… because I never said hello properly."
The wind passed through the mango tree, shaking droplets onto us. None of us moved.
"Will you tell us the whole story?" the girl asked.
Her voice — that soft, hopeful voice — felt like a gentle hand pulling me out of a dark place.
And for the first time in years, I felt ready.
I looked at both of them, these two strangers who somehow arrived at the exact moment my heart was collapsing.
"Yes," I said at last. "If you truly want to hear it… I will tell you everything."
The boy nodded firmly. "We want to hear."
The girl leaned forward, chin on her knees. "Start from the very beginning."
I smiled weakly.
"Then listen carefully. Because it began a long time ago… before the rain, before this cemetery, before I ever learned what real heartbreak felt like."
I looked up at the sky — the clouds parting slowly, light creeping through.
"It began in school… when I was a scared boy, and she was the brightest thing in the room."
And with two children sitting patiently under a mango tree, I opened the door to a story I had kept locked inside for most of my life.
The story of the girl I loved so loudly
and never told.