"How do i look?" she asked all of a sudden, with an air of a princess, showing off her new pink dress, laced with pretty flowers, matched up with pink shoes and a pink hair band. "Its looking good" he said. And then she waited expectantly for something more to be said. He pretended as if he didnt care. And just as she was about to turn back and leave heart broken, he looked at her and said "You know what, you are beautiful". And with an air of a grown up, added, "Tooty Fruity beautiful. Thats how beautiful you look". And the twinkle in her eyes returned and a big grin found a way back into her face.
Although she never knew what it meant to be "tooty fruity beautiful", she waited for him to say this every single time and he never disappointed her.
All these years, she had never stopped asking the question. And the answers always amazed her and nevetheless brought a smile on to her face.
Now with a notable number of decades down the road, with the embers of youth long dead, her frail body struggling against the will to survive, lay, awaiting the last breath. The moment when life would deceive her and send her into an unknown world beyond what she ever knew. He staggered to reach out to her, every step made equally painful by the passing years. When their eyes met, the gleam in his, flowed into hers, warming her heart and filling her mind with the beauty of a sunshine.
As her lips parted to utter the words held in her heart, he bent down and kissed her forehead as if the words had already reached him. Gazing into her eyes, the lighthouse of his existence, he uttered what her heart yearned to hear. "You look beautiful. Tooty fruity beautiful, as always".
