I am Arjun, 61 years old this year. My first wife passed away 8 years ago from a serious illness. For all those years, I lived a lonely life. My children were all married, and they would drop by each month to give me money and medicine, then hurry off.

I didn’t blame my children. They were busy; I understood. But on some rainy nights, lying there listening to the rain on the tin roof, I felt terribly small and lonely.

Last year, I went on Facebook and accidentally found Pooja—my first love from high school. I liked Pooja a lot back then. She had long hair down to her waist, dark eyes, and a radiant smile. But while I was still busy preparing for my university entrance exams, her family married her off to a man 10 years her senior, and she moved to a distant city.

We lost contact after that. Forty years later, we reconnected, and she was a widow. Her husband had passed away 5 years prior, and she lived with her youngest son, but he worked far away and rarely came home.

At first, we just messaged to check in. Then we called. Then we met for coffee. And then, for some reason, every few days, I would drive over to visit her, bringing some fruit, a box of cakes, and some joint supplements.

Once, I joked:

“How about… we two old people get married to avoid loneliness?”

To my surprise, her eyes turned red. I was flustered and started to explain, but she laughed and gave a small nod.

And so, at 61, I remarried my first love.

On our wedding day, I wore a dark brown traditional suit, and she wore a white silk sari. Her hair was simply pinned up with a tiny pearl clip. Friends and neighbors came to congratulate us. Everyone said: “You two look young again.”

I really did feel young. That evening, after we finished cleaning up the wedding feast, it was nearly 10 p.m. I made her a cup of hot milk, then laboriously closed the doors and turned off the lights on the porch.

Our wedding night—the night I thought I would never have again in my old age—had finally arrived.

As I took off my wife’s sari, I was startled. All over her back, shoulders, and arms were dark, long, old scars. I stood frozen, a pang of pain shooting through my heart.

She quickly pulled the blanket over herself, her eyes filled with fear. I asked, my voice trembling:

“What… what is this, Pooja?”

She turned her face away, her voice choked:

“In the old days, he used to get angry… he was verbally abusive, difficult… I never dared to tell anyone…”

I sank onto the bed, unable to hold back my tears. My heart ached for her, a deep, twisting pain. It turned out that for decades, she had lived in fear and humiliation, afraid to share her pain with anyone. I gently took her hand and placed it on my chest:

“It’s okay… From now on, no one will ever hurt you again. No one has the right to harm you anymore… except me, but I will only bring you happiness.”

She began to cry. A choked, small, but trembling sound. I pulled her into my arms and held her tightly. Her back was thin, her bones jutting out, but this small woman had spent her entire life in silent endurance.

Our wedding night was not like that of young couples. We just lay beside each other, listening to the crickets chirping outside and the wind rustling through the leaves. I stroked her hair and gently kissed her forehead. She also stroked my cheek and whispered:

“Thank you. Thank you for showing me that there is still someone in this world who loves me.”

I smiled. At 61, I finally understood that happiness is sometimes not about money, not about the passionate days of youth. But in old age, it is having a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on, and a person who is willing to sit by your side all night just to listen to each other’s heartbeats.

Tomorrow will come. I don’t know how much longer we have left. But I am certain of one thing: for the rest of her life, I will make up for what she lost, I will love and cherish her so that she no longer has to be afraid of anything.

Because for me, this wedding night is the greatest gift that life has given me back, after half a century of longing, missing, and waiting