I looked at Bob.
He looked at me.
Standing in his kitchen: 10 PM; 46 years ago – last night, today. Love striking fast and furious was the last thing on either of our minds. Still, it struck … and we rolled with it.
And we liked what we saw ;-)
We liked what we were feeling.
A chance meeting.
Happenstance.
Fate.
The midnight hour was fast approaching … time for teenage Cinderella to wrap up the convo with Prince Charming; and head home.
He walked with me.
I walked with him.
And our galloping hearts were recklessly on their way into the future.
As soon as the present (back then) was wrapped up.
Old relationships of betrayals to end.
A new relationship to begin.
Hope catapulting our wounded hearts out of the night and into the day.
The dawning of March 28th, 1974, set things in motion that we couldn’t turn back.
Our young hearts took on lives of their own and were aiming for a brighter future.
And it was too late to look back …
Of course, as all married couples do, we had our {moments} of occasional strong dislikes when we strongly disagreed with each other – which always moved us towards marital growth and made us dig our roots in deeper to withstand the tough times of upheaval, Bob dying twice in a short 7 year span early into our married life, financial uncertainty that came with unexpected upheavals: and the years of unrelenting angst our grown children still nourish.
But always – always – love for each other was the stabilizing factor in our life together.
Our lives were casually thrown together with a big bang effect, the evening of March 27th, 1974.
The Maker of the stars liberally seeded our bruised young lives with fresh hope as March 28th, 1974, unfolded.
But there were still loose ends to be tie up before our life together could really kick in (https://jeastofeden.blogspot.com/2020/03/46-years-ago-tonight-love-walked-in.html).
Our 44 years together really was an amazing time of blessedness, despite the occasional teeth-jarring ruts along the long and winding road that led to the December 14th, 2018 solo journeys – Bob’s beyond the clouds, and mine to continue alone, until I too, am called Home.
Bob’s physical absence in my life has left a nameless void (there are no words in any language to adequately explain how I feel) in my life, and I struggle every day to learn how to live without falling into that void.
So, I write.
Writing helps keep me balanced between the past and the future as I walk the shaky tightrope of widowhood. As I inch forward, one small step at a time, I am trying to figure out how to effectively live my life the best way I can … without the greatest man I ever knew, in it.
Bob was a big man.
Bob had a big heart filled with love for me.
Bob wore mighty big shoes.
Bob’s unconditional love lifted me out of the ordinary, and gave me an extraordinary life in a private world we created just for us – while we lived in this twisted world … where real love and traditional marriage between a natural born man, and natural born woman, seems like a foreign concept.
I want our grandchildren to mature and live their own extraordinary lives.
I want to live my life in the now, in a way that honors the man I loved; the man I still love. The man I have always loved, since I was a slip of a girl at 10 years old and married at 17. I want to live my life moving forward while still reminding the living of the memory of the man I still love; the man, whose DNA our grandchildren carry into the future.
Their futures started with a look.
That look wrote Our Story.
And so, I write.
