Everyone hopes to experience a beautiful, moving love when they’re young. It doesn’t have to be earth-shattering; it only has to have once meant everything to us. Every encounter in our lives is like a journey lined with blooming flowers: meeting is the bloom, parting is the fall. We’ve seen the beauty of the four seasons along life’s road, watched flowers bloom and fade, and finally understood that most people we meet are only passersby. We, too, become spectators in someone else’s life. Every now and then, we encounter a flower. It may not be a scarlet rose, but once we cherished it as if our life depended on it. And when it finally leaves, we still can’t bear to let it go. Time tells us that this is all part of the rules. We are all bound by them, unable to break free. Yet in the end, we can only sigh: Though parted, our longing crosses only a stretch of water; looking back, it feels as though three lifetimes have passed.
