Forever and ever...

FOREVER AND EVER...

I was in the seventh grade, she was in the eighth, but I knew from that first time I saw her and the way her green eyes sparkled when she looked at me…I was in love.

My first real love!

Was it ‘gaga’ love? I guess it was. Some people say there isn’t such a thing as love at first sight, some people say there is. Some people have even maintained a relationship with their ‘first loves’ through their high school years and even married, had children, grandchildren, and to this day are still living their marital bliss after 50 or 60 years of harmonious companionship.

I have to envy those people, because I wasn’t that lucky.

Tiffany. Just saying her name makes my heart jump a few beats. I didn’t know then, nor do I now why it still does, but it does.

Looking back on it now though, I often wonder why I fell in love at so young of an age with a girl who was just reaching puberty. And how could she have fallen in love with somebody like me: a skinny, pimple faced, four-eyed freak who was two inches shorter than she was.

Perhaps the stars in the sky were perfectly aligned on the day when the minister asked a question and she answered it with, “I do.”

I love you, Tiff.

Maybe I loved you too much, which is why I did what I did.

Which is why I’m going to see you right now…

~        ~        ~

This low blanket of dark clouds are trying to shadow my path to the cemetery, but I won’t let them hamper my journey. This is our fourth anniversary, Tiffany, but our first one without being together.

I know it won’t be incarnate, but perhaps it will be spiritual.

As I make my way through the gates of this land of the dead I can almost hear your voice, calling me to your place of eternal sleep, for it was only one week ago that I took you away from me in a violent eruption of jealousy.

How could I take you away from me? Where did I take you?

Somewhere in the distance an owl asks its own question, but I offer no answer.

I’m here to see Tiffany.

To ask my question.

“Tiffany? Are you here?”

The ground beneath me gently begins to shake as the dark clouds above part to reveal the full face of the moon, and a soft tinkling of bells draws my attention to a mound of earth somewhere off to my left.

Yes, Angus. I’m here.

My mind is twisted into a tight knot of emotions as I slowly make my way to the one and only that I ever truly loved. I’m barely ten feet away from her when my legs suddenly betray me, leaving me frozen in place.

Angus? Angus, why did you stop?

“I…I don’t know.”

Don’t you still love me?

“Tiffany, you know I do. I will never stop loving you.”  I feel a tear roll down my right cheek, and then another.  “But I…I need to know…can… can you ever forgive me?”

No sooner have these words escaped my lips when a blinding flash of lightning splits the sky, momentarily blinding me. I wait for the boom of thunder, but no boom is heard. The only sounds I hear are those gentle tinkling of bells.

As my sight slowly comes back into focus, I watch, both fascinated and terrorized, as first one finger, then two, and then an entire hand slowly inches its way out of the freshly tilled soil, the index finger curling twice, beckoning me to approach the grave.

Yes, Angus. I forgive you.

The knot in my mind twists even harder, but this time it’s wrapped with a string of fear. Once again my legs betray me, and I find myself unwillingly drawn to her as those last ten feet between us collapse into one.

The bells are no longer tinkling.

The clouds once again cover the moon.

My hand reaches out to meet hers.

Our fingers intertwine.

Tiffany forgives me, and now we are together.

Forever and ever.