STORY CONTEST WINNERS-2008
PAST LOVES DAY
-From If Only I Could Tell You
2008 Past Loves Story Contest Winners
View 2007 Contest winnersFIRST PLACE
I Sing of You
by Patricia Boies
I was still sixteen, a freshman like you, when we met, you who would become my first love, my first lover. I had a crush on you from the start, your thick curly dark hair exploding under the wide brim of your black felt hat, your smooth olive skin that needed no shaving, your crooked front tooth, your long lean body, the battered cane you carried because of your knee operation. I was shy and you were shyer, so even though we spent months hanging out with the gang, my eyes on you as the joint passed and the music played in all those dorm rooms, at all those concerts, even though we hitchhiked from Boston to Ithaca in the middle of winter, huddling close in the phone booth after the state trooper threw us off the highway, it was not until April, spring breaking out all over, that I told your best friend how much I liked you, and he told you, and so it began.
We would walk into the dining hall for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, and the guys would tease us, it was so obvious what we had been up to, feeding each other in ways beyond what cafeteria food could provide. The narrow dormitory bed seemed vast, it contained multitudes, as we breathed each other in, hearts and bodies humming.
We would hitchhike into Harvard Square and take the MBTA over the Charles River to Park Street, constantly touching, fiddling with the soft braided leather bracelets we had fashioned for each other. We made love under the willow tree in the Public Garden, and on the terrace of the Fine Arts Building in Cambridge, and in dozens of places with no name at all. We marked our territory wherever we could lie down together. I wanted to get to the bottom of you, wanted nothing to be off limits. I told you things I had never told anyone, and you showed me your own scars. But mostly we celebrated the moment, our bodies our bible.
First love has a strong grip.
After our time together, it mattered to me that we stay friends. Years later, when you met the woman who would become your wife, I was glad that I liked her and that she liked me. I changed the day of my departure for India so I would not miss your wedding. As you stood waiting by the altar, I blew you a kiss, and you acknowledged me with a nod.
When my daughter was born in Seattle, I wanted you to meet her, this new love of my life, this new testament to living in the present. After your son was born, and our two families, each with one child, would get together from time to time on one coast or the other, I imagined our children falling in love some day.
When my daughter died suddenly one April, just after her tenth birthday, you flew across the country to come to her celebration. It mattered to me that you came, that you were present at this unimaginable threshold. I stood at the altar and spoke of life with my daughter, and of life without her, and of the song that was still in my heart. You are part of that song, as you have been since I was sixteen, as you always will be.
SECOND PLACE
The Last Time I Saw Dennis
by Deborah Schildkraut
Classic story. Opposites attract - underachieving high school rogue dates aloof, class brain - as big a cliché as the story line in any 1950s girl band song. Dennis and I were as different as snowflakes and hailstones. We didn't have one friend in common. The differences fueled our relationship.
It was drama club where I first noticed Dennis. He swaggered when he walked and wore his russet hair low over his mischievous green eyes. The way he tossed his hair aside when he smiled made me shiver. And that smile, a little off center with just the left corner turned up, only added to his charm. From the first day I saw him, how I wanted to kiss that crooked smile. Silly me. My aloofness hid a naïve girl too shy to talk to him. Dennis had no such problem and asked me out the second day of rehearsals. I accepted, staring at my shoes, wary that this was a prank. How could such a boy be interested in me? But three days later, he picked me up on Friday night for our first date involving pizza, a movie, and some kissing. I don't remember the details of the movie or pizza, but the kissing…that I remember. Flirtatious kisses, light and teasing, led to a depth of feeling I had not imagined I possessed. For the next year, his senior and my junior, we learned to enjoy our differences and moved through the months at ease with each other.
Dennis graduated in 1966, and went to work for his brother-in-law fixing cars at his auto repair shop. The Vietnam War was in full throttle. I feared that he would be drafted. I pleaded with him to go to college. He could have gotten a deferment if he enrolled. I wanted him safe, to be with me always. We struggled through my senior year. Even when we weren't arguing, the draft was never far from our minds. It was a dark time. All the sweet kisses could not push away my fear. We ended the relationship a month before I graduated. I had gotten a scholarship to a college 300 miles away. We were weary, and the break-up inevitable.
Fast-forward to Thanksgiving 1968, my sophomore year in college. I hadn't seen Dennis even once in the fourteen months since we broke up. Home for the first time that semester, I took a walk in the damp afternoon chill, needing to shake off the lethargy from the previous day's feast. I walked a few blocks past familiar places, friends' houses, the convenience store, and high school. I turned the corner onto First Street, and there he was, waxing his car, He had a chamois in his hand and was wiping the rain from the white and aqua Olds 88 that had been our chariot and refuge. He was bent over the front fender. His beautiful hair was gone, shaved to the scalp. I staggered and grabbed a fence for support, dumbfounded to realize he must have been drafted. Trembling, wanting to move forward but unable to face him, I skulked away. I slowed at the corner. Just for a second I looked back. His head began to rise up from the car. I ran away.
The shame I felt when I heard of his death in Vietnam thirty-nine years ago, lingers. I fear he saw me that day, and went to the other side of the world knowing I was a coward. I should have walked the half block to his car. I should have smiled at him, hugged him, wished him safe from harm. I should have.
Bittersweet are my memories of Dennis, first love and first regret entwined around my heart. And carried from those days are the lessons that love changes you and there is no turning back. For that I still weep whenever I think of Dennis.
THIRD PLACE
Electrically Imprinted
by Lori Stott
Not too long ago, I came across a Dear Abby headline that caught my eye: Happily Married Woman Still Misses Lover Who Never Was. The letter was signed "Needs Closure".
Needs closure. That's me. My past love, the one I can't shake entirely, was my high school sweetheart, my first true love. Upon graduation, we attempted to carry on our relationship despite the fact that we lived two thousand miles apart.
At forty-five, I am truly happily married to a man whom I adore, and we have created a family and a life together that is built on trust and love and grace. But I still think of my young/old love. I feel that he- or the we that was- will always have a place in my heart of hearts. Our relationship, which ended badly to tell you the truth, holds a sacred place in my being. It is but a memory- a precious but tumultuous snapshot of a youthful time- passionate lovemaking on a blanket in the field behind my parent's house, tender handholding in the local movie theatre.
I know so few people who are walking around on the planet who don't wonder about a past love, or think about that time of life when that particular love was alive. Mine is named Darren. I have friends of all ages and backgrounds who have told me theirs: Kenny, John, Gayle, Derek, Colleen. My mother recently went to her fiftieth college reunion, and had those old feelings come up after spotting her first boyfriend, a man she had not stood next to in over five decades! This "wondering" seems to be a universal condition.
It is not so much the "what if's" that get a hold of me (what if we went to college in the same state, what if we had managed to stay faithful, etc.) but more like the feeling in my body that won't let go of the memory of him, of the us that used to be. So when I read this Dear Abby's explanation that past loves are actually "imprinted" in our electrical circuitry, it just seemed right. Ah ha! Our relationship was literally "in" me still, just as I have suspected now for almost thirty years.
I have seen Darren at two high school reunions. At our tenth, we were still both single and I am sure the thought of "what if?" wandered across both of our minds. But nothing happened, and I know now that this is for the best. It was at that reunion gathering, after years of silence and despair that I felt (and after making a formal amends to him years prior, for essentially screwing things up between us) that I was able to look him in the eye and thank him for the gifts he had given me. You see, Darren had opened up my world to the joys of backpacking in the Rockies. He showed me awe and wonder for the grandiosity of nature while at the same time to appreciate the small things, even good socks or the right camping hat. I told Darren that, to this day, when I go hiking, the memory of him is with me, in my feet and in my heart. I was able to share my gratitude for the time we had together.
At our twentieth high school reunion, we simply had a good time, exchanging stories and laughter about our present lives, enjoying the fact that we still both shared a love of adventure, travel and the outdoors. He and my husband Jay hit if off so naturally (no surprise there, they are a lot alike!) that former classmates were compelled to ask if we were all buddies.
Through the years there has been healing and self-forgiveness for the pain and loss of that early love relationship. Still. Every now and then Darren pops into my mind or shows up in a dream. But I no longer wonder why. I just think, oh there he is again. And I know that he is "electrically imprinted" in me and shall forever be. And that is as it should be. Abby said so.
FOURTH PLACE (Two Stories)
When He Looked Like James Dean
by Terri Elders
When I walked into the foyer of the Little Brown Church for Bob's memorial service, I broke into a grin. Our son, Steve, had posted a blown-up photograph of his dad. Bob, at 19, shrugged into a leather flight jacket, eyes squinted against smoke from his corona, looking jauntily suave, the perfect embodiment of early '50's cool.
We had been divorced for nearly twenty five years. In fact, when Steve called me with the news, while he related the details, I was doing the math. If we hadn't been divorced back in l980, if we had remained in our genial but increasingly disunited marriage, if Bob hadn't succumbed to lung cancer, we soon would celebrate our golden anniversary.
Though I'd not seen my ex since I had remarried five years earlier, I had continued to send birthday and Christmas cards. I knew of Bob's hospitalizations and painful decline, that over the past few years he had lost nearly seventy pounds, that he walked hesitatingly with a cane, and looked closer to 85 than his actual age of 73.
A career police officer, even after retirement Bob remained active with the Southern California Juvenile Officers Association and a 12-Step program he had lead for decades. I found it tough to picture how deteriorating health had laid siege to his robust appearance.
Now, staring at the photo of the Bob of my youth, I remembered how we met. In l954 I had been editor of the Compton College Tartar Shield, and Bob, a Korea vet attending on the GI Bill, had been taking a photography course. Since the photo lab was housed in the journalism building, Bob used to joke about trying to lure me into the darkroom.
I took my seat in the chapel, and listened as my son welcomed the crowds of people who had come to celebrate his father's life. Steve spoke of finding the photo of his dad, how astonished he was to discover how cool his dad appeared, and how he had looked like James Dean even before Dean became a star. The audience chuckled.
Then he mentioned how his father had been smart enough to marry not one, but two, smart women. The audience laughed again, and I heard somebody in the back whisper, "I wonder if Terri is here."
Others came forward to relate appreciative memories. As they talked, I reflected on how our divorce had opened doors for both of us. Bob had found a more compatible woman, one who shared his interests, which involved recovery programs right in the town where he had been born.
Our divorce had released me geographically so that I could work with Peace Corps. I have heard gray wolves howl on the spring equinox in Mongolia, stared down a baby octopus while snorkeling in the warm Indian Ocean waters of Seychelles, dined on armadillo at Macy's Café in Belize City. I've seen the Toledo, the castle in Spain I had dreamed of since childhood.
Whenever I returned to Southern California, Bob would take me to lunch, and smile at my adventures.
Steve asked if anybody else wanted to speak. I rose and approached the dais, and heard somebody say, "Why, it's Terri."
"With the exception of his niece, I have known Bob longer than anybody here today," I began.
Then I told of our first encounter. As I exited from a rigorous Western Civilization test in late l954, Bob gave me a wolf whistle. I walked over and said, "That's cheered me up." I stood on tiptoe and pecked his cheek. Bob grinned and said, "If I get that for a whistle, I'm going home and get my bugle." The audience roared.
I recounted some of Bob's earlier achievements, how he had been the quintessential optimist, and I vouched that he indeed had been cool. "I'm happy to say," I concluded, gesturing towards the photo, "that I knew Bob Elders when he looked like James Dean."
A few days later I found an abelia shrub called Golden Anniversary. Bob and I had been married for only twenty five years, but had remained friends for an additional twenty five. That chilly afternoon I planted the Golden Anniversary.
FOURTH PLACE (Two Stories)
In the Mood (Lost Love)
by Florence Haney
"Hey, Betty. I found out our dance tonight is formal. OK?"
So like Blake. He's picking me up at my dorm before the hour. Everything's last minute with him. That's what makes him fun.
I hung up the hall phone and shot upstairs to my room.
"What are you doing?" my roommate, Ann, asked, as I flung sweater and swing skirt I'd chosen earlier on my bunk.
"Formal dance!" I pulled my long gold gown over my head, adjusting lace on sweetheart neck and puffed sleeves. Bless Mother's artistic sewing fingers.
"He did it again!" Ann fluffed out my side bang, ran her fingers through curls over my ears. "I'd dump him!"
I shucked out of saddle shoes and anklets, slipped on high heels, tossed compact, lipstick, hanky into my beaded bag. "He's the best."
Best dancer, best writer, best looker. I was envied by everyone in our tiny oiltown high school.
"You enjoy so many of the same things." "Like you were made for each other." everyone said. I agreed.
Glenn Miller's "In the Mood" pulled us through ballroom doors. Driving rhythms called us to join brightly dressed girls and their dates. Many young men were in ASTP or Navy V-12 uniforms. Blake would be Navy-bound soon. A submarine somewhere. Pearl Harbor changed all our lives.
"This might be our last dance." I kicked off my shoes. "Can't jitterbug in these."
Mellow sounds from trombones slid right down my spine to my toes. Blake's hand took mine, twirling me onto the floor. Saxophones sang their way into every nerve. We knew just what the other would do. Our bodies moved faster as other dancers moved into a circle. We had the whole dance floor. Blake twisted me quickly behind him. Deep-throated growl of slide trombones urged us into swifter steps. He swung me out as far as he could. Our shoulders moved at the insistence of Miller's music. We met back in the center, falling into each other's arms as the last beat throbbed.
Panting, leaning on each other, we accepted spontaneous applause. Blake. Betty. We belonged together. Always "In The Mood" when we hit the dance floor. Benny Goodman, Harry James, all great bands. But Glenn Miller brought out our best.
We kissed good-bye the day he left for duty.
"We'll keep "In The Mood."
"Till you come home."
"Dear Blake, here's my latest writing effort, called "Blue Vase," about Mother during the Depression. Hope you like it. Waiting for your article. In the mood, Betty."
V-Mail didn't give much room to share thoughts, so now and then, I sent a story. He sent back a critique. We wrote about high school days - our freshman year at OU. Remembering the fun when we danced, when we worked in the Press Building wrapping and mailing out books worldwide. Mostly, we looked forward to writing a book together.
The war grew more intense. My family moved to California where we worked at Mare Island Naval Shipyard Somehow our addresses were no longer correct.. Blake and I lost track. I met other young servicemen, even danced with some. It wasn't the same. Glenn Miller disappeared flying to Paris. Big bands faded away. The world was so different when the war ended.
"Where are you, Blake? Are you still writing? Dancing? Are you still alive? Where are you, my lost love?"
I entered a new way of life at University of California, majoring in Liberal Arts. Returning service men, sporting the "ruptured duck" on their lapels, registered under the GI bill. One turned out to be "love of my life." Fred, good musician, terrible dancer. He always played his alto sax, when other students danced. Glenn Miller was his favorite band through our years of marriage. We played those melodies over again, cuddling in his parents' car.
Fred never knew why I felt so loving when Miller music played. Yes, even after these many years with the most wonderful man in the world, "In The Mood" still makes me wonder, "Where is my lost love? Is he still "In the Mood?"
HONORABLE MENTIONS (Six Pieces)
Cherish The Memories
by Elaine Suelen
It was a beautiful day in the middle of May, and I was clearing a table, in the local diner where I worked. You could hear patrons talking amongst themselves, the clanging of silver ware and dishes, and the cook's bell when an order was ready. It was just another normal day. I finished clearing the table and noticed a new customer sitting in my area. Walking over to the table with a menu and a glass of water I offered him a good morning and ask if I could get him some coffee. He said yes and ordered two eggs over easy, hash browns and a scone. During the course of his meal he would stop me from time to time to make small talk. "I'm new in town, I'm here from California, where are you from", that sort of thing. When he finished his breakfast he wished me a good day, gave me an unbelievable smile and was gone.
He came in the next three days at the same time, ordered the same breakfast and on the third day he asked me out to dinner. I, however, was not ready to date. I was a single mom of three small children and had only been divorced for eight months. I had made up my mind that I was going to raise my kids first, and then worry about finding love. I graciously said no, but thank you very much. He took my rejection to his offer with a smile, and said "perhaps another time". He continued to come in everyday and it wasn't long until half the town new him by name. He was outgoing, generous, compassionate to a fault and had a laugh that would fill the room.
Two months after his first visit to the diner a group of us decided to go on a camping trip. He was among the friends that went. We spent two wonderful days taking walks, watching the kids play in the river, sitting around the camp fire and sleeping under the stars. When we returned home, he volunteered to drive my children and I home, he walked me to the door and as I turned to go inside he gently touched my arm and said, "You know Elaine, you might as well give in. I'm in love with you and I generally get what I want."
I did finally give in less than a week later, and we had our first date. And so began one of best periods of my life. He was gentle at times, intensely passionate at times, hard headed, patient and kind hearted. He used to tell me I was the most stubborn woman he had ever met, and then he'd laugh and kiss me. He taught me that a relationship took compromise and communication. It took more giving than taking. It took forgiveness and patience. He also taught me that there should be joy when you're with someone and there were times we would laugh until we cried.
We also had our arguments. I remember once I refused to talk to him. He came to my house, I didn't answer the door. He called me on the phone, I didn't answer. It wasn't until the next morning after I had spent the night crying that the phone rang, and without thinking I answered it. He asked me if I was ready to talk, I said yes and we did. I only bring that up because as we were discussing the incident he told me that when you refuse to talk to your partner it makes them feel like they have no control at all in the relationship. Everyone wants to feel like they have some kind of control. I've never forgotten that.
We were engage to be married the summer of 1996. The day never came. He was killed in a car accident on December 5, 1995. It took many years for me to recover from the loss, but I came to a point where I could cherish the memories and I do cherish them very much.
We'll Always Have Chicago
by Kelsey Hanson
I never thought I would fall in love. I didn't really think that any boy would look twice at me. I was pretty, but in a bookish way. I was friendly, but in a shy way. Love seemed out of my reach. It was never something that I could understand. I hated valentine's day and all the sappy poetry and love songs that came with it. I despised romantic comedies. They seemed so peppy and annoyingly unrealistic. I could never get into them. I am a nerd, I thought to myself, nerds don't have boyfriends. I was wrong.
I think most of my peers had written me off as one of those people who will be single forever. That was probably why when I finally did find a guy, people found it startling. Heck, it was downright scandalous!
We didn't have a romantic start. I didn't meet his eyes across a crowded room. The world didn't stop when he shook my hand. I sat on his foot during a school assembly. I apologized and he simply smiled and shrugged, "That's okay, I have big feet." His name was Eric. He was about my age even though he was a grade ahead of me. He was young for his class and I was old for mine. He had glasses. He had braces. He liked to read. It seemed too good to be true.
We were friends for several years before we actually became an "item". It was on a glass trip to Chicago. Both of us had been flirting. Everyone on the bus knew it. Everyone was watching us like some sort of telenovela. We finally made it official during the trip. We were quite the pair that day. From our ankles up, we both looked pretty good. He was wearing a dress shirt and tie. I was wearing a designer shirt and slacks. But both of us had insisted on wearing comfortable (and incredibly worn out) tennis shoes with our lovely outfits. There was no way I was running up and down The Magnificent Mile in stilettos. After a night at the theatre, we went to Navy Pier. We started out with a group of about six. The rest of my friends, conveniently disappeared leaving me and Eric around. We spent the rest of the day walking up and down the dock watching the sunset. It was then that we decided to give it a shot.
I was truly in love with Eric. In his eyes I wasn't weird. I could talk about Lord of the Rings and classical music around him. He wouldn't laugh. In fact, he was genuinely interested. We'd argue about which was better, the book or the movie, and he would send me Josh Groban songs over the internet. It felt so good to be considered normal. Not weird. Not a nerd. He told me all the time that I was perfect, and I believed him. I felt perfect.
Unfortunately, he was a senior. He graduated that year and went off to college. I left him a romantic love note in his year book that said P.S. We'll always have Chicago. We spent one final summer together before he had to go away. In the fall, Eric went to school in another state. I was heartbroken, but determined to make it work.
It didn't. Eventually, the distance proved too much and we broke up, but I'll always remember Eric. He proved to me that even a cynical, nerdy person like myself can fall in love. For a moment, I was perfect in someone else's eyes. Someday, I believe I'll find a man who will always think I'm perfect. Until then, I'll always have Chicago.
Faded Embers
by Odinakachi Ihunnia (Nigeria)
The grasses in their most radiant lush, the wild flowers forming a starry host, the humming pollinating bees , the tall tree branches whistling songs that she alone could dance to as they obeyed the soft wind moving them gracefully; all reminded me of the inevitable vacuum Susan had left in my life.
The first time I talked with her closely was when she was coming home with her mother from their vegetable garden. They both had woven baskets with which they carried fruits and vegetable. Susan did not bother to hold the basket on her head but swigged her hands freely as her slander figure cast a shadow on the sandy ground; a shadow which still remains embossed in my memories. I had earlier that day started on a bad mood but her smile as I came across to greet them illuminated my cloudy day. From that moment, each smile from her made me think of heaven's splendor and I couldn't help smiling back.
I was in my pre-med in the state University, she was a dropout from high school due to financial distress her family faced. There was the family background and social class disparity between us that made my parents think I was running a risk having a relationship with her. In my heart, I knew she was all I dreamt about love and each I tried to leave her and go to those from my social stand point, my heart made it clear to me that true love was not going to ask social class.
I once found myself alone with her in their vegetable garden; all I could feel in the air that I breathed was the sweet fragrance of roses which I succeeded in tracing to her hair. She always decorated herself with wild flowers and roses from which she made crowns and necklaces. Although she had no money nor costly jewelry ,the crowns and necklaces she made decorated her neck like a thousand diamonds in strings of gold and the crowns fitted in her flowing hair like the queen of the wild.
Looking through her eyes I could see I future filled with boundless seas of peace, joy and love. She was initially timid to talk to me but as time went by, she not only told me the secretes of her soul but I also discovered that her fantasies were just the imaginations I had always dreamt would come true- they were dreams of peace, joy, and love in its fullest. Susan showed me a world I never knew. I had unknowingly been bathing in the euphoria of the academic highfliers and well educated wealthy fellows. I never knew a world exited where all the sophistications that my life depended were not needed. Hers was a pure natural world where air conditioners and deionizers were unnecessary; her world was never polluted but naturally regulated.
The sweet scent of the wild flowers that Susan presented to my nostrils each time we are out in the woods made me distaste the artificial fragrances in my room.
The serenity of the woods with Susan leaning by my side crooning sweet lullabies was invaluable .Susan was to me an unassuming flower pollinator, a crafts girl, a gifted artist, an uncertified nurse, an uncelebrated singer and above all, the unassailable princess of love.
Even an angel sent by God cannot fill the space now in my soul. The only miracle in my life just faded away like the embers of a cold night fire when she had an asthmatic attack and her inhaler has run out and no one to rescue her.
Electrically Imprinted
by Dorothy Baughman
I was in the eighth grade when true love entered my life. Oh, I had crushes from first grade on, but this was the real thing.
He was new to our school and I caught his eye across the room when we were being divided up for homeroom. Yep, sure enough, he was in my homeroom and most of my classes. He was a band student, which was my utmost wish, but my parents couldn't afford that.
I loved this boy with a passion for three years, which is a long time for a school crush. He had dark hair and green eyes, a curl always hung forward, and I loved the way he pushed it back. We never dated, never went out, all we had was school. And by tenth grade, the football games. He played trombone and I sat as close to the trombone section as I could get when the band was performing from the bleachers. Not even my closest friends really noticed that Don and I went out of our way to be next to each other. However, the band director somehow knew. He put Don on the end of the line of trombones so I even got to turn his music.
As I said this went on for three years. By tenth grade, we were old enough to actually date, but had no way in the 50s. That Christmas he gave me a blue scarf and bangle bracelets and I wore his band bracelet with our school's name written on it. Almost at the end of the year, he pulled me aside and told me the most awful news I could hear; he was changing schools. He wanted to play football and the band director really hit the ceiling. I found out quickly about the engrained sports gene in a male.
So off he went the next year, but I never forgot him. I went on to marry and have three children. I did keep up with him through his sister who ran a daycare in my town.
I was working at a local hospital as an EKG tech and went to do a cardiogram on a patient and there stood Don. It was his step dad. You always want to look your best when you meet an old beau, not be in a white uniform and pregnant to boot. He was sweet and complimentary and we said goodbye again.
I was helping classmates organize a class reunion when we came up with the idea of inviting not just the actual graduates but also other kids that either moved or went in the service. His name came up and we sent an invitation. I had shown his school picture to my youngest daughter and she always thought his curl was cute.
Toni went with me that year since her dad couldn't make it and had gone to the car to get something and she walked in with Don. I was stunned. I smiled; he smiled and gave me a hug.
"Your daughter looks like you, he said.
I gave her a quizzical look. "How did you know…?"
She pointed to the 'curl' in the middle of his forehead, gray now, but still there.
"Yeah, Mama, he's been telling me what a hoot you were in school."
We all had a good time. Don's wife was cute and smart, both having college degrees and had moved back home from California.
I would not change my life, but I often wonder what would have happened to us if he had not wanted to change schools. I still think about him every now and then. I can't help it; he was my very first love and one does not forget their first 'true love'.
UNTITLED
by Joshunda Sanders
In The Bronx, where we grew up, John and I were both so tall we seemed to rule every city block we wandered together. I adored him with the teenage innocence that allows us to truly give 100 percent of our hearts. The winter I turned 14, he was 16. He worked as a locker room attendant at the Columbus Avenue Boys and Girls Club near his highschool, Dewitt Clinton. I started going to the Club with my highschool classmate, Lanell, who introduced us. He was coffee-colored, with a false front tooth he sometimes clicked in and out of place. Months, even years, later, he would become my Panda bear, though at 6 feet tall with a baby face, he looked more like a grizzly. He called me Bambi, because of my big brown eyes.
We dressed alike in matching Tazmanian Devil t-shirts or camouflage outfits. My friends couldn't stop laughing when we showed up at a junior high school reunion dressed like GI Joe and Jane, but I didn't care. In The Bronx -- a tough world of cracked sidewalks, drugs and violence -- we were invincible inside our love and nothing else mattered. We could be kids together, playing Streetfighter on his Nintendo, or too grown for our own good, engaged for a few months based on a pretty cubic zirconia ring and his promise to love me as long as I loved him back.
All I loved more than John were books. One of the biggest differences between us is that I had the opportunity to go to boarding school, because all I had, really was school. In four years of high school, he'd attended maybe 100 days of class. My mother, who is bipolar but does not take medication, was emotionally and sometimes physically absent from my life for long stretches of time. We lived in the Bronx longer than we'd stayed anywhere when I was young, but before we moved there, we'd lived in shelters all over New York City. School was my only way out and when I got a chance to go to boarding school, I had to take it.
John, not one to show his emotions easily, cried. I went to the elite Emma Willard School on scholarship and tried to keep one foot on the manicured lawns there and another on the crack-infested streets of the Bronx. I sent him drawings from school like I was a budding artist in prison and we talked on the pay phone a few paces from my room most nights of the week. But before I left Emma, our three-year-relationship was over.
As big and comfortable as our love was, it taught me that all love cannot withstand change. While John had protected me from the world, he had also kept me from dropping my defenses and growing beyond the survival tactics of anger and bravado that come with growing up in the 'hood.
After boarding school, I had several other loving relationships but none of them equaled my love for John. We had accepted each others' lives without judgment. We had had so many firsts together and so many plans.
When I was a junior at Vassar, he found me again. He was engaged, working as a security guard in Manhattan. Life had changed me so much, but he hadn't changed very much at all. I still loved him - I always would -- but not only did he belong to another woman, but he also seemed angry that our paths had gone in such different directions. Recently, he sent me a note on Myspace. It has been nearly a decade since we spoke, 15 years since we fell in love. We exchanged numbers
the same day and talked for 2 hours. We laughed about how silly we had been, how much we adored one another, in spite of how and where we grew up. My Panda had taught me to walk in the world with swagger, but most important, he showed me that fully giving yourself over to the love of another person is an incredibly beautiful force of nature that is just as unpredictable.
Sinikka
by Gary Winters
what do you say to a blind girl
in an after-hours wine bar?
that was the problem facing me
I decided just get going
like plunging headlong into surf
I plopped two fingers on her leg
and started rambling on about
nothing really but she listened
so I said do you mind my touch?
my hand on her leg after all
how else would I know you're still there?
she said in a low tone I was sunk
her shape was fit for a statue
back in Finland where she came from
with Notan her black Lab guide dog
she asked me if I wanted to
go home with her and I said yes
nothing more nothing less just yes
inside her building she said watch
as she took off Notan's harness
the floor was waxed linoleum
Notan took off at a dead run
halfway down the corridor now
he toppled over and then slid
to the end with a silly grin
then he ran back did it again
Sinikka gleeful me amazed
coming from a late-night venue
to a realm where life's magic
makes bald fun of adversity
in the morning she cooked breakfast
bacon and eggs over easy
when I casually mentioned this
later on my old pals were stunned
how'd she know when the eggs were done?
from that night we were an item
she was my girl and that was that
she took five minutes in the shower
no more, shook out her short loose curls
sparkling electric flaxen hair
and she was ready to go out
at a famous jazz club she said
they've got a pool table in here
no I said then looked back oh yes
she smiled said I heard the balls click
Sinikka saw things I didn't
like this is a nice restaurant
she'd say then smile at my silence
and gently guide my fingers to
the fine embroidered tablecloth
one time she walked up behind me
at an outdoor café table
and put her hand on my shoulder
Sinikka! how did you know it ... ?
she sniggered with delight--the dog
Sinikka taught me Finnish words
minä rakastan sinua
it means I love you in Finnish
a spell cast down from vast glaciers
reflected in rivers of ice
newspapers picked up her story
ran her photograph with Notan
she was a little bit famous
and I told her all about it
she shrugged but took my arm and smiled
time for Sinikka to go back
close out that chapter of her life
Ernest Hemingway said one time
all true stories end in death
and this one is no exception
I took her to the Malaga
airport Notan too in his rig
long discussion with officials
this dog is not a dog--he's not?
no--professional bodyguard
see? so he went in the cabin
no muzzle he was her defense
red-coated escort boarded her
graceful gorgeous Finn head held high
faithful big black dog at her side
we talked on the phone every day
I said we'd meet in Italy
a woman would come from Sweden
and bring her to me in Venice
from there we'd travel on to Greece
then her sister called from Finland
bad medical report big C
Sinikka's dead she hanged herself
with the dog lead she said through tears
in a flash it all became clear
in olden times aged Inuit
didn't want to burden the clan
pull the sled over here nephew
this snowbank's a good place to die
Yrag stops nods he understands
minä rakastan sinua
my Scandinavian princess
minä rakastan sinua
Sinikka daughter of Odin
minä rakastan sinua
OTHER STORIES WE IMAGINE YOU WILL ENJOY READING
Johnny Forever
by Annine Estopare
Oh, you know how we learn love. My first foundation formed in relationships with my Mama, my Papa, and my brother nearby. Do you believe it is true that however love turns out, we begin with something like that: our family and its equivalents, making the way for who becomes our first sweetheart? My first sweetheart was Johnny Hernandez. I vividly remember him coming to my house on his bike, always stopping exactly the same place between our grass and the tarred road. Right there!
He would stand astride his bike to gaze over our grassy yard waiting for me to come out if I was at home. He always wore a grownup style black-rimmed hat. His shadowed eyes warmly glistened even when shaded. Johnny also wore a badge-like shiny clip around one black trousered leg. He stood ready to wait or to peddle away on his bare chained bicycle. I liked Johnny to stand at my house that way. It seemed important. He was important.
I liked going to his home too, especially in the summer. It was an adventure to walk down hot Ashland Avenue and to trot or tarry on the Calumet River Bridge. On the other side of the bridge, I gladly entered the forest preserve. Then I went back into bright sunlight and onto a forgotten dirt road to sneak past Franky Popp's abandoned farm. Finally I traipsed on shining blistering railroad tracks to go to the end where Johnny lived.
It was relief, and I was semi blinded when I climbed into their welcoming home out of hot glaring sun. It all smelled good, the newly washed white things and something cooking in a darkish corner. These impressions mixed with mysterious passions going on in the home among this extended family.
A silent affection attracted my heart to Johnny who in my mind seemed to yearn toward me. I loved being with serious Johnny and with Frankie, his exuberant brother. Johnny, Frankie, and I played by those railroad tracks or on my street where the rest of kids also gathered to play it, baseball, hide and seek, or races, war, cowboys and Indians, hockey or marbles until we variously had to go home.
Johnny's home thrilled me. Outdoors, Mrs. Hernandez hand washed the perfectly white cotton shirts the boys always wore. Water came from a spigotted pipe down the track. I enjoyed carrying buckets of water for her. They lived in a roomy box car. Dim and glaring light shifted on windowless newspaper layered walls, readable walls. It was exciting when stark shadows of someone moving past the open doorway would suddenly leap, hugely blocking out all the words on the paper. All was fascinating.
I had child senses of human quest going on, the universal thing for survival and happiness, ancient human existence, families coming from far away. I was aware mine too, came from far away and ancient times. Johnny meant all of that to me and more.
When I grew up, I married a man who looked at me with poignant loving gazes that might be just like Johnny's gazes at my house from the road. My husband told me he was enthralled by his childhood sweetheart to whom he never declared his love feelings. She fills his heart to this very moment. That sometimes makes me wonder if Johnny remembers me and what could be his memory of the eager girl who loved to be with him.
Can it be I mistook being his child sweetheart, seeking a husband to love me just like Johnny did? What if Johnny just stood there planning how he would someday build his own house like my Papa built ours? What if I live like his mother did, relentlessly working while the men and children go out to play.
That first romantic relationship stays perfect in my soul. I use the memory for sorting life and as reminder to cherish the dear ones. Sometimes I use it just to remember back when my mother brushed and then braided white taffeta ribbons into my auburn hair before I went out to play with Johnny or the other kids.
Gleam and Glow
by Janine Harrison
Somehow Paul and I managed to spend the night we met alone in a dorm at a Lutheran youth convention at Kenosha's Carthage College. The next day friends nicknamed him "gleam" and I "glow." We were inseparable until the trip ended. It wasn't that we were basking in sexual afterglow; it was that we had sat together, holding hands, exchanging our lifetimes, our spirits equal. Clear blue eyes tangoing warmth and intelligence. We watched dawn break through a sable sky over the lake arm-in-arm and then savored our first kiss. He was, and I was almost, sixteen. Our good-byes were upon the beach, hugging, caressing, promising.
Paul called the next day.
We lived fifty miles apart-he, in wholesome Wheaton, and I, in rundown Riverdale, Illinois. We exchanged a lot of love letters. Even today, in a cedar cupboard, resides my "Paul Box"; although I never open it, it contains every sweet word he wrote.
We met next for a luncheon cruise along Lake Michigan's shoreline. Sun shone in the sky and in our hearts, which his father snapped in a photograph.
Just after Paul's first visit to Riverdale two months' later, my father went into the hospital on a Sunday and died on a Wednesday. Paul stood by my side through the funeral. What he couldn't know was that my father was an alcoholic and that we hadn't come full circle. At first after he died, I was elated. With him, all discipline, all fear died. My grades shot upward. I felt truly pretty; danced for my high school dance group, T-Ettes; took mom grocery shopping; cooked dinners; dotted I's, crossed T's; and aimed for perfection.
Almost everything about Paul's life seemed a storybook. His spacious, white sided home on a tree-lined street, picturesque; the mural of a waterfall amid a forest covering his bedroom wall, quaint. His sister, Brenda, spiritual, giving, seemed faultless- his mom, gracious and kind. I didn't want him to know how ashamed I felt of my life, so I tried to be twenty-four/seven wonderful and never spoke honestly. He was, after all, a prince. What if I turned into a frog? What I didn't realize was that because I couldn't confide in him, neither could he in me, and his life wasn't as unproblematic as it appeared.
For homecoming, he watched as, in 1920's-style ivory fringe body suits and ballet slippers, T-Ettes performed "All that Jazz." After, Paul, in his suit, and I, in my mini-dress and stilettos, danced, him occasionally swinging me under each arm.
In December, I popped out of his coat closet, yelling, "Happy birthday!"
He gave me a gold heart necklace with a diamond for Christmas.
At one point, Gleam even pinned me to my bedroom floor, asking, "Will you marry me?"
"Yes," answered Glow.
We knew, however, that it would be years away. Still, I would practice signing
"Mrs. Paul Allen Schewe, Janine Schewe."
Late winter I plummeted. All I wanted was to lie in bed. It would take years of overcoming "don't think, don't talk, don't feel," to comprehend the turmoil I felt then. Paul tried, but I remained mute. Worse yet, I needed to feel bad about myself as I had when my father was alive, so I cheated with Lohnny, five miles away, who wore muscle shirts and parachute pants, jumped full beer cans thrown into fires, and took me on my first trip to third base.
Paul found out.
"What we had wasn't even real, Janine!" He argued as we broke up. I couldn't understand.
We dated others for three years, drinking, drifting apart. But when I last saw him, entering junior year, we were beginning to mature.
"I'm going to break up with Kelly," he confided.
I was hopeful.
However, before the semester closed, she was pregnant with what would be their first child. They would marry and have two more.
Looking back at our brilliant blue-eyed innocence, I wouldn't have chosen another first love or a first kiss with more ambiance than daybreak. Although I became who I was meant to be, if a parallel universe actually existed, Gleam and Glow would be strolling lakeside arm-in-arm until their sun set.
Lament
by David Galassie
I can't remember when it first came up, but it's bothered me for a long, long time. And every five years or so, coinciding with each reunion, the same guilt comes around. She'd never responded to the questionnaires. For all I knew, she was still at that address in the souvenir booklet, living a slow, tortuous existence. I don't have the ego to think that I was the sole reason for her to stay away, but what if I was? To finally make peace with her (with myself?) after all those years might do me some good. Or it might just irritate old wounds. What good reason do I have after all those years?
She was a thin girl with a manly, gravelly voice that belied her fragility, Maggie played the clarinet in the marching band. Her long straight blonde hair accentuated the porcelain texture of her milky skin. She literally looked like a doll- a no-curves, androgynous doll. We made quite a pair.
How it happened, how we came together is pretty hazy now. I don't even remember the exact details. She had a textbook I needed; I drove to her house to buy it and we talked. Maybe that's where it began? We had many classes together on the accelerated track for college-bound students. We hung out together at a dance and something clicked, slow-dancing to "Color My World" or was it "Stairway to Heaven?" Leaving the gym, we walked together until she stopped at the phone booth at Third and DePere and called home so her father would know where she was. And, in the end, I believe I broke her heart.
Occasionally we walked together from class to class and I know I walked her to band practice once or twice. We never officially "went together." Then what was I doing? I'm sure Maggie didn't look at it the same way I did. And of course, meeting Bess, my eventual girlfriend, sealed the deal. I mean, I was head over heels in love with that girl. Poor Maggie didn't fit anywhere in that scenario.
We were only friends officially but all these years later, I know in my heart that she thought it was more. I know now in my own heart that it was more. And I feel so bad about that. She might have been a lifelong friend if I'd handled it differently; she didn't deserve what I gave her.
The other day, I pulled out my yearbook and read what she'd written in our junior year, her only entry in our four years together. After some drivel about the math class we shared, she wrote, "P.S. I really enjoy our friendship." But I know her words were just a clever ruse to disguise her true feelings. I can't for the life of me remember what I wrote in her book. I think I kissed her once; I held her hand now and then. I know I never said I love you. So why, after 30-some years do I have to feel so damned bad?
The Music of Love and Rejection
by A. J. Arenson
First love came and went in the time span of about a week back around 1963. It was middle school when you were judged by your peers about everything; your hair, your makeup, who you hung out with and who you had a crush on. I was not the best looking girl, I was skinny, awkward and a bit shy. I had never had a boyfriend. I watched popular girls who had so many boys flirting with them, they could pick and choose, not me. So when Richard showed an interest in me, I was totally in awe.
What I thought was "love" progressed quickly after a few days of talking and sending little meaningless notes back and forth. We didn't spend much time together as he belonged to the band and took music classes after school. His family was a very musical one, especially his older brother. Richard was nice looking and his eyes were very pretty and kind, plus he had a genuine, softspoken honesty about him, a rare amalgam of maturity twisted around youth.
It was an innocent bonding, nothing physical, no kisses, just long eyefuls of a view beyond what I had ever noticed before. All these new feelings, ah, I liked being in "love"! Plus, it was so easy, he lived so close, even rode the same bus.
In those few days I felt such excitement, a boy liked me for me! I had had a million crushes on unattainable beaus, but this young man chose me.
The next week he dropped me a note saying he was going to stop by and play a song for me and to come to the window when I heard him. Later that afternoon he showed up with his French horn and played a tune as my sister and I sat at my upstairs window. Well, I sat and listened and my younger sister by two years was laughing her head off. I was so embarrassed, I kept trying to move her and her laughter away from the window. She thought it was funny and "uncool". She ran for the phone to tell all her friends what a weirdo "Romeo", her sister was in love with. She let my friends know too and I got teased that next day by people coming up to me saying they heard Richard was playing his French horn for the whole neighborhood outside my window and how 'silly' that was.
Suddenly I found myself 'playing' to the crowd and ignoring Richard, finally breaking it off a couple of days later. That was how fast my first love came and went. He even avoided me by going to another bus stop.
Now with the years heavy upon me and the wisdom to go with it. I am sorry I did not take the time to know what he might have taught me about his musical world. I was so young , shallow and petty. So dependent and worried about how others perceived me and my interests. But indeed, thirteen is an awkward age just hitting puberty and feeling insecure, relying on the superficiality of others to guide ones' decisions.
Reflecting now, I hope that I gave my children a better understanding of the people surrounding them and a better image of themselves so as not to be so 'uptight' and judgmental.
As for Richard, now I smile at the thought of looking down from my bedroom window at that young boy trying to win my heart. The boy with the kind eyes and honesty went on to become a Neonatal Specialist, his brother, an accomplished cellist. I found my own music with someone else, but will always have a soft spot thinking about how innocent and fragile first love was and how Richard was so sweet to serenade me. I only wish I could remember what he played…
The Stage Door Canteen
by Florence Wilkinson
Everybody was doing all that they could for the war effort. Everyone was patriotic, even though the war was drawing to a close.
The office that I worked in, for the San Francisco Seals, had a big celebration because our baseball team won a big game.
I hurried home because I anticipated a thrilling evening. I was going to the famous State Door Canteen. The Stage Door Canteen was founded by Bette Davis, the famous movie star.
On arriving home, I got dressed in my ballerina length, strapless black dress with white lace around the top. I did my shining, black hair in an upsweep hairdo. I put on the only pair of nylon stockings that I had managed to buy since the war began. I slipped into my black, suede high-heeled sandals with the open toes and ankle straps, I straightened the seams of my stockings, put on a pair of pearl, dangling earrings to match the white lace at the top of my strapless dress, and I was ready to go.
As I went down the stairs, Daddy met me at the bottom. He made me put on the short bolero jacket that matched my dress. I wasn't going to wear it!
My three best girlfriends and I boarded the streetcar and sang, "Right in the Fuehrer's Face," as we rode up and down the hills of the city to our stop.
When we walked into the beautiful Stage Door Canteen, we were each given an assignment for the evening. The assignment lasted until nine o'clock. Then, we were allowed to dance with the servicemen. We were not allowed to tell them our last names or our addresses. We had to fair and dance with everyone and not form any attachments.
My assignment was as a hat-check girl. I had fun doing that. The soldiers, sailors and marines gave me a of wolf whistles and remarks about how pretty I was.
Nine o'clock came and I was released to dance. I picked a handsome soldier for my first dance.
He had flashing dark eyes and beautiful, shining black hair. He flashed his beautiful smile at me while we danced to "Always." Later, that became our song.
"Where are you from," I asked.
"What a coincidence! My family has some good friends who live at 2246 Dryden in the West University Section of Houston. Their daughter, Annie, is just the same age as me," I said. "Annie," he exclaimed, "I know Annie. I lived right next door to them! I grew up and went to school with her."
We were only allowed to dance with each serviceman once at the Stage Door Canteen. I must have danced fifty dances that night.
At last, the band played, "Good Night, Sweetheart."
"Houston" flashed me a brilliant smile across the ballroom.
When I got off the streetcar at the last stop before the Pacific Ocean the next night and started to trudge up the hill, I sensed someone walking behind me. In front of "The Cliff House," I turned and saw "Houston" hurrying to catch up with me.
"Hi," I said in surprise. "What are you doing way out here?"
"I called Annie," said Houston. "I asked her your family's name. I looked it up in the phone book. I called your mother. She invited me for a Greek dinner tonight. I haven't had one since I left home."
"Oh yeah," I thought, "Mamma likes to feed people. Anyway, I'm glad she picked him."
After that night, "Houston" and I were inseparable. He was in San Francisco for two weeks before he was shipped overseas. He even proposed to me in a letter, but he never came to San Francisco again.
A few months after the war ended, our family received an invitation to Annie's wedding. That's right, she married the boy next door."
So did I. [not "Houston"]
Life Saver
by Samantha Priestley (UK)
I didn't realise I was leaving my boyfriend when I went to Portugal. I did it under the veiled protection of my parents' plans. I did it without thinking and without realising that it was the right thing to do. And for the rest of my life I have been thankful.
Aged nineteen I had been living with my boyfriend for two years. It wasn't working. We were young and so obviously wrong for each other, but being young we refused to see that. My boyfriend didn't work, took drugs and, on occasion had a temper that kicked out and terrified me. But I was stubborn, so my parents planned a trip abroad, asked me to accompany them alone and, to my own surprise, I jumped at the chance.
It's strange how we sometimes need an outsider to point out the things in our lives we should be able to see, but can't. In Portugal I met a boy who did just that and so much more for me.
When I met him, drowsy with the day's sun, heavy with holiday laziness, it was like I had never encountered a boy before. Everything was new. His smell, the way he talked, his dark eyes and his apparent naivety. I was hooked from our first kiss and knew there was no going back. Being with this boy re-instilled in me the self worth I had lost while living back at home with my boyfriend. Suddenly I felt I deserved this. I deserved to be with someone like this who told me I was beautiful, held me gently as if I might break and placed me at the centre of everything he did and said.
I will never forget the moment when my Portuguese lover confirmed what I was beginning to understand for myself. We were sitting on plastic chairs outside a shuttered juice bar at six o clock in the morning. We had spent our one and only night together in his house while his parents were away. I knew I was falling for this boy, but I still couldn't place this new love in a slot in my life where it seemed to fit. I had a boyfriend back at home whose house I shared, our possessions still mingling in every space like wet clothes in water.
We sat outside the juice bar, still closed in the early morning, and he looked at me over the table.
'You must leave him.' he said.
It should have been obvious to me, but I still needed the push, like a blessing.
'You shouldn't let him treat you like he does.' he went on. 'You should have better. Tell me when you get home you will leave your boyfriend.'
I remember looking at him as he sat back in his chair, our faces locked on one another's, seeming to see into each other. The sky was slowing shifting from midnight blue, to yellow, the sun rising and the hot day about to begin. And I thought, this was how it ought to be. This was love. This sense of caring was what was missing from my relationship back at home.
I left a few days later, vowing to return. I went straight home and moved my things back into my parents' house, away from my boyfriend. It was a decision I would probably have reached on my own eventually, but without so much clarity and surety as I did at that time, and who knows how long it might have taken me to get there.
Long distance relationships are hard, and, though I did go back and we did try, it was never going to last with my Portuguese boy. But I will never forget him. He showed me how to love again, not only another person, but myself. He taught me that I was worth it, and I have carried that through my life. When I think of him now it still feels warm inside. He set me straight. Made me believe in myself again. I have no doubt that he changed my life. He altered things so dramatically for me, in a way, he saved me.
The Love That Heals All Wounds
by Jim Womackt
I met Harriet Burnette during the summer of 1967, when we worked as summer employees at Fort Belvor, Virginia. She made me laugh and helped me overcome a serious case of shyness. For some reason, known only to Harriet, she found my naivete´ and country attitude refreshing; she enjoyed my company, and I made her laugh. Before long, we fell in love. My first taste of love was just as exciting as the romantic writers portrayed it to be. Flowers smelled sweeter, and the sun shone more brightly.
We made many memories that summer. We cried during the sad part of "Born Free." We shared love songs at a Righteous Brothers concert in Washington, D.C. We had long conversations about our future together. We made plans. Before we knew it, the summer ended, and we returned to college.
Unfortunately for me, our love did not stand the test of a long-distance relationship; Harriet met someone else and moved on with her life. Whether I liked it or not, I moved on as well. Eventually, my only remaining memories of Harriet consisted of a Righteous Brothers LP and a Polaroid picture taken on our last date. Occasionally, I ran into the photograph and wondered what happened to my first love. When I played that record, I fondly recalled a truly special time in my life.
Over the next thirty-eight years, I married, raised a family, and had a career in education. I committed myself to being a good husband, father, and teacher, but depression and alcohol abuse began to take a great toll on my family life and my family. Even though I put away the bottle in 1991, the damage was done. In 2003, I ended the unhappy marriage and retired from an unrewarding career in education.
For a time, I lived quietly and enjoyed a simple life. I traveled, ran ultra marathons, and worked at a variety of jobs. Despite the fullness of my life, a steady and compelling feeling began to rise within my soul. That old Polaroid picture of Harriet spoke to me. The Righteous Brothers sang to me about love and inspiration. A truly wonderful idea came over me; I would search for Harriet.
In 2005, I returned to Stafford, Virginia, and made some inquiries about Harriet. In a series of serendipitous event, I made contact with her sister and one day, Harriet Burnette re-entered my life with a simple cell phone call. Her name was different now, and her voice had changed due to some vocal chord surgery, but it was the Harriet of my youth. I discovered that she, too, had experienced a difficult life. She was widowed at thirty-one, divorced by forty, and currently in an unsatisfying relationship. We reunited in the summer of 2005 and rekindled our love after all those years. Time stood still for us. We were young and giddy again. We enjoyed the intoxicating nature of our love, and married in December.
Two months after we married, Harriet found a tiny bump in my neck, which turned out to be thyroid cancer. Although the necessary surgery and radiation put me out of action for a while, the doctors told me that Harriet's timely discovery had saved my life. My second chance a love became a saving grace. Her commitment and support during my cancer treatments taught me the real meaning of love. She raised me up, challenged me to be active, inspired my creative talents, and helped to heal many of the wounds from my past.
Since our wedding, I have had an opportunity to help Harriet as well. She has had several surgeries, and suffered the loss of some special relatives. She tells me that I supported and loved her more than anyone else in her life. She says that I have helped heal her wounds as well.
By following the voice of the heart, we were able to have a second chance at love, and that opportunity has been life-changing. Our love has, indeed, healed our wounds and made us whole again. Are the events of our love and reunion just chance? We think not.
First Love, True Love
by Larissa Gula
"You know what they called me in that class? 'Lord and master'."I laugh. Evan's just told me over the phone what his nickname in Imaginative Writing had been the year before. I'm sitting by the trolley tracks at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, trying to talk to Evan over car #66's air compressor. I'm about to kick it---It turned off. Wonderful. I can talk normally now. And I don't have to break my foot kicking the metal.
It's already September. We broke up a year ago, now that I bother to think about it. After meeting when I was a freshman and he a sophomore, after growing closer and dating the year after…after breaking up…after I went through almost a full year of depression…
I hadn't realized how much I depended on him until he broke up with me. I hadn't realized he had reinstated my trust in men. My father had verbally abused me for years. I had begun to believe every ugly word I was ever called.
And then, Evan came along. Evan, who wore glasses and kept his hair slightly roguish. Who gave me my first kiss, who taught me about love - no. Not physical. That isn't love; it's lust. No. He taught me about true love, the art of giving and compromising, of keeping the relationship strong through every life obstacle.
I like to think we're closer than ever, a year after that breakup. He's nineteen and in college now. Jealous as I am, I'm happy for him. He deserved to leave our 'Bubble' community, as well as the family who treated him as badly as mine. It'll be my turn next year to get out of my own nightmares and start anew.
Around my neck today is a necklace he gave me almost two years ago. I don't tell him over the phone. It's not important to him so much as to me, probably. Besides, he's seen me wear it before. He knows I kept it.
What he doesn't know is that the necklace has been battered by vacuum cleaners, dropped down sink pipes, and fixed with superglue as much as my heart. It isn't in perfect shape anymore. But you have to look closely to tell the difference between its old shape and its new shape.
It's just like the bond we have now compared to a year ago. Evan the big brother is as good as Evan the boyfriend. Maybe better. Can I ask for more than to be loved for being me, even now?
I close my cell phone. I'll have to help make dinner soon if the volunteers here are cooking out. My friend Laura is at college; she's the usual assistant. I miss her as much as Evan. They were both as good as my siblings.
I think back on a set of lyrics I wrote, titled "Second Heartbeat". I actually chuckle out loud there on the public bench, thinking about how depressed I had been back then. It was amazing that my parents never took me to therapy. I had been so convinced I would never recover from the break-up, so immature in my thought process…but the breakup had never meant I would lose him. All it had meant was change.
It also meant I could tell the difference between the lust and the love we shared. Still close, able to sleep side by side without having sex anywhere, able to talk about sex and our bodies…we are comfortable with each other. We understand the other now, years later.
Maybe one day I'll truly be able to show Evan how grateful I am for that bond, for his lending me his wings when I needed a boost to fly up again, and for catching me after the long fall. Not to mention for still flying alongside me now.
But for now, I have to take care of myself like I promised. The best way to do it is to pick up the pen and start a new story, and write a new song to go with it.
And that's just what I'll do.
Times Have Changed, but Not this Boy
by Sean Burnside Quigley
Modern wisdom holds that every man has ex-girlfriends, that every man has felt the pain that accompanies the loss of his better half. True, some may take the first stages harder than others, but in the end - always the end! - we are all better off and more complete. As it were, only those who were once miserable can genuinely understand what it means to be blessed.
But to this very day, exactly two years after Ashley persuaded me that we needed to separate 'temporarily' before beginning our undergraduate education, I still wake each morning possessed of a mind whose attention is distracted; of a spirit who cannot see itself because the one that gave it sight has parted; of a boyish desire to rekindle and live happily ever after.
Ashley gave me far more than certainty in my weekend plans. Though, to be sure, as a boy those weekend plans were perennially under question, making her presence convenient as well as ebullient. Besides being a stable romantic friend on whom I could lay my weary head, she infused purpose and passion into my life. She gave me reason to ponder the many unconventional modes of existence that I had always stowed safely away in the deep recesses of my stable New England person. She allowed me to be.
She embraced my soul and its never-ending assortment of schemes and pretensions. Oh, without exception she told me that I was crazy, as my parents and brother always did. But there was always just a little bit of disingenuousness, just enough, to make me know that, secretly, she really did love my quirkiness, and perhaps this quirkiness was precisely why she did love me. I knew that though she may poke fun at my anti-modernity disposition and rhetoric, she would follow me anywhere, as I would her.
We were destined to be ancients living in a world of modernists who, with each other, would guffaw at interstates and e-mail. She, being a nature-loving future veterinarian, would have the village dogs and horses to whom she could give care, and I would have my pen. We assumed that one day I might get a typewriter.
Then came our breakup. But do not worry, for it was only our first breakup, to be quickly followed by our first makeup. To spoil the ending, only one of the two was repeated, and I trust that you know which.
University always loomed over the horizon, waiting to use its rays to slice back open the raw breakup wounds, and permanently scar both of us. It was always on my mind, but not in a melancholic sense. I eagerly awaited the day when the 'scheduled' breakup would happen, because I knew that our love would triumph. There were train stations near to both of our universities; we not being airplane folk, our love was seemingly fated by the gods. Save the suicide part and the inter-familial enmity, she was my Juliet and I her Romeo.
For neither set of parents liked or respected the union.
'The boy and girl are too serious, especially that idealistic boy who always talks about marriage and who wears a promise ring from his girlfriend that looks suspiciously like a wedding band. And, wait! - is he wearing it on his left hand? That maniac!'
In the end, as one can only write of these things after a fair amount of time has intervened, she dumped me. I will be frank - I was dumped by the one girl whom I had loved, and had allowed to love me. She will probably still claim that it really was her decision to end our relationship, but I know better. I know, as I painfully knew then, that her parents, being conventionally modern, would never sanction a young marriage with that hopelessly romantic, traditionalist boy. 'Doesn't he know that times have changed?'
No, apparently he doesn't.
Two years later, in reflecting on that relationship, I still clutch my promise ring and my ideals passionately, but am now realistic enough to type on a laptop.