The Widow and the Very Old Glove – A Tale of Love and Loss

Once, far along a road that meandered like a ribbon through misty hills, there lived an old widow. She was a quiet figure in a quiet world, dwelling in a house that had grown as weary and creaky as she had. Her days were long, and her nights even longer. But the loneliness was not the sharpest ache she carried—it was the love she had once felt for a boy.

A boy—because to her, he never became a man. He remained young in her memory, preserved like a pressed flower between the fragile pages of her heart. She loved him with a devotion that neither time nor indifference could wither. Yet he had never loved her back. Perhaps he had never even seen her—not truly. He lived his life unaware of the widow’s yearning, just as the stars remain indifferent to the howls of wolves below.

And in her possession was a single, very old glove.

All her life, she wondered if the boy might someday think of her, remember her, love her back. But the truth she refused to face was simple and brutal: he probably did not even remember her name.

She pined. She cursed. On bitter nights, she stood under the cold glow of the moon and shook her fists at it, swearing like a sailor. She mocked herself for being a fool, but her heart wouldn’t let go. She wandered through life like a ghost, half here, half trapped in a daydream of what could never be.

But never did she stop to think that perhaps the boy was not heartless or cruel. Perhaps, like her, he too felt like an old, dirty, misshapen glove—worn and forgotten, no longer fit for the hands of the world.

You see, gloves are peculiar things. They are made to be part of a pair. On their own, they are incomplete, purposeless in society’s eyes. A lone glove is an oddity—a relic of something that was whole, once.

The widow’s glove, though stained and frayed, had once been the pride of her youth. A pale pink kid leather, soft as a rose petal, adorned with a delicate embroidery of silk flowers. Two dainty buttons graced its wrist, and its hem was cut in charming scallops. She had loved those gloves. They had been her companions at dances, at soirées, at secret rendezvous where the air was filled with perfume and promises.

But time is an unforgiving tailor. The glove had stretched, strained, and faded. The fingertips were threadbare from her nervous picking, little ink blots stained the creases, and the moths had nibbled at its seams. A button had long lost its covering. Though she had cared for it, the glove bore the unmistakable marks of age and memory.

Then, one day, the glove realized—it had lost its mate.

It was not a sudden discovery, but a slow, dawning ache, as if waking from a dream to find the bed beside you cold and empty. The glove mourned—not with tears, for gloves cannot weep—but with a quiet, aching resignation.

Never again would it feel the comforting press of its pair in the soft dark of a purse. Never again would they lie side by side in a perfumed drawer, a matching set. And never again would it catch glimpses of its mate during a dance, both moving in perfect symmetry.

Gloves, it turns out, have hearts stitched in with their seams. And for this glove, there could be no replacement. Even a mirror image, stitched by the finest artisan, would not do. Only its pair would complete it.

Just like the widow.

She never threw the glove away, even when her fingers became too gnarled and swollen to fit inside. She tucked it safely in her bosom, where it rested near her heart, a small token of her past, her loneliness, and her love that was never returned.

Perhaps she knew, deep down, that neither she nor the glove would ever be wanted again—not in the way they once were. And yet, she clung to it, because it was hers. Because it was a memory of completion, however fleeting.

One morning, they found her. The widow had passed quietly in her sleep, the old glove clutched tightly against her chest, as though she had drifted away still dreaming of the boy who never knew her love—the boy who had never, not once, thought of her.

And the glove? It remained with her, even in death. Two forgotten things, bound by longing.

Moral of the Story

Unrequited love is a sorrow as stubborn as time itself, but it teaches us that even the most worn and forgotten things carry stories of beauty, tenderness, and memory. Sometimes, we hold on not for hope, but because we cannot bear to let go of what made us feel alive.