Two Love Stories by K. E. Ward - HTML preview

Two Love Stories

By K. E. Ward

Stronger than the Ocean Tide

Haley had been twenty-two years old. She was blessed with thick, auburn hair, which fell to her shoulders. Her brown eyes were clever, and she had a charming, dimpled smile. Her nose was cute and round, her face heart-shaped. Growing up, she was the darling of her class. As she grew older, her heart-shaped face lengthened a tad bit, and her neck grew longer and more elegant.

I loved Haley because she was soft-spoken and her words were gentle. I loved her because I considered her brave and assertive, despite her quietness. She was physically attractive, and her personality became outgoing and even flirtatious. She began her life as a shy little girl, but demanded to increase her strength with assertion.

My name is Andrew, and I missed Haley. She died so unexpectedly. What I remember is being called the day after she had gone to the hospital and the sound of her mother’s grieving voice telling me she was sorry. But she was Haley’s own mother. I should have been the one to tell her I was sorry.

It had been a driving accident. An inebriated driver had swerved into incoming traffic going northbound. There was nothing the doctors could do.

I suppose her mother thought I was someone very important to Haley, because she invited me over to look through her things after a few days. I took one gift home with me, a remembrance and a message for me and my future.

The objects were obviously intended for me; after all, they were wrapped in a box with a tag on it and my name. They were supposed to be a birthday present for me for next month, which was in May. I opened the gift, her mother there, and inside the box we found a brown, leather journal with a fountain pen and stationery. It was her telling me to make a record of my life and share it with others. Through the written word I would fulfill her wishes for me, because I loved her and I wanted to honor them.

So, I started that evening. I wrote a journal entry and my first letter, which was to my brother in Alaska. I expected to complete the journal and stay in touch with everyone else I loved. To Robert I wrote:

“Hi, Brother, I suppose I should fill you in on everything that’s been happening since we last talked. I miss you. I have so much to tell you. Will you promise to keep in touch with me, also?” I continued writing the letter, silently telling Haley, “I love you.” And that was what I would always do. “Thank you, Haley,” and I cried.

I thought about Haley all the time, especially while using the journal and writing letters. I started writing letters to many of my family members and all of my friends. I shared my day-to-day activities and inner emotions with them. My letters were not just about Haley. I also talked about my life dreams and goals. I tried to establish close relationships with my family and friends. I could have kept up with them through social media alone, but I also wanted to give them something more genuine and tailored to them individually, and I too wanted something physical to hold, like letters and gifts.

I continued a pen pal relationship with my distant aunt for a long time, maybe three years. She was over in the state of Maine.

One day she decided to run a blood sample through a genealogy test and find out our ancestry. It turned out we were largely Hungarian, English, Scotch-Irish, French, and Dutch. She tried contacting various distant family members and telling them how they were related.

One of Haley’s cousins, Brian, and his family decided to do the same thing. Brian talked to a young man in Maryland, who lived just outside of Baltimore, who knew all about their family history, as he was born in Sweden.

One day Brian told me to get on a long-distance call to Sweden. So, I got on the phone with a nice family who knew how to speak English, and that was very good, because I did not know how to speak any of their language. It was a three-way call. Brian said to them, “Good to talk with you. Are you having a good day?”

“Ja, yes, we are having a very good evening here in Sweden.”

And it was then that I heard her voice in the background. Haley? I thought.

It had to be her. I could recognize that voice, soft and yet a little hoarse, answering a question an older woman had asked her in Swedish. But what was she doing there? I thought she had died.

It turned out that she had in fact not died years earlier. That was what they told me. Her family thought that I would not be as crushed if I thought she had died than what had really happened: Haley became depressed and didn’t want any of her friends or boyfriend to see her anymore. But I had found her. I had looked around the world, doing genealogy and family history, making telephone calls and getting close with as many people as possible, and finally, I got so close with them all that one of them finally told me where she was.

So, four years after her funeral, she got off the plane on Valentine’s Day with a huge smile and another gift for me. It was a letter she had written me.

I had gotten her a huge bouquet of a dozen red long-stemmed roses with baby’s breath. She handed me the letter, and I handed her the roses. The letter said,

“Dear Andrew,

I’m sorry I left without telling you where I was going. I didn’t mean to hurt any of my friends or you, who I loved. I was going through some problems and needed a new life. I needed a break from reality. I never stopped loving you, but to communicate with you I needed to be an ocean apart. I meant for you to write to as many people as you could, and I meant for you to find me at the end.

Love,

Haley”

***

A Friendship to Remember

      If only I didn’t suffer from this debilitating depression, I thought. I thought about Valentine’s Day coming up and it bothered me because I didn’t have a boyfriend. I was so depressed that I really didn’t want to leave the apartment. But I was often asked to hang out with my best friend, Rita, on days when I didn’t really feel like it. Rita, with curly, red hair, came knocking on my door sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening. I never knew when chipper Rita would come, either in person or on the telephone, and want to have some fun.

“Rita,” I said. “I wasn’t expecting you.” But I was. And I hid my sigh. Not that I didn’t love Rita, but I was experiencing symptoms of tiredness and the desire to cry, all the time, and I had to muster energy just to talk to her. I wanted to be uplifting and fun, but it was so hard.

“Hi Melissa! You’ve just got to hear the latest news about Carla! She’s getting married, and she wants me to come.”

“That’s wonderful, Rita,” I said, my voice low and weak, but Rita wasn’t able to pick up on the sarcasm.

“Don’t you want to come with me to pick out a new outfit?”

Normally, I would pretend to have energy and say, “Sure,” but I was feeling more tired than usual. In fact, my thoughts ruminated about my mother, how we never got along growing up, how I didn’t live with anyone else in the apartment and got lonely, how nothing good ever seemed to happen in my life, and how I didn’t have a love interest, and how I was no fun and worthless.

How could I tell Rita what I was experiencing? And she was the nicest person I had ever known. That’s why we became best friends. We’d known each other for fifteen years, and our friendship never ended. I said, “I’m sorry, Rita, but I can’t come. I’m not feeling well. I can’t possibly do it. Please go without me.”

Rita frowned. “What’s wrong, Melissa?”

Tears formed in the corners of my eyes. “I can’t tell you.” And it was because I couldn’t put it into words what I was feeling. I felt a physical ache in my stomach, and the emotions were like a fist clenching the insides, so that it was hard for me to let them out; in fact, I didn’t know if I ever could. So, I asked her to leave, watched her leave, and intended to lie down on my bed and curl up until I could go back to sleep.

But I thought about the many years we had been friends, playing on the swing set, going to school dances together, hanging out at the roller rink to skate, eat pizza and drink colas, and even going to the same college. I loved her so much; in fact, in the past, we had had so much fun together that we once promised that we would never lose touch with one another. But I couldn’t see a future for us now. I couldn’t see how I could ever be the fun, upbeat person she needed. I cried so often, when she wasn’t there, that I realized I had a problem, and I wanted help. Because, what if that swing set, the one we both played on, was missing a friend in one of the seats? I couldn’t let that happen. I thought about her, and how I loved her so much that I could not allow myself to drift away in a spiral of sorrow. I could not tear my picture out of the photographs of us together, because it would leave an empty place in her life. I could not leave her. I didn’t want to hurt her. I didn’t see a future for us together, but I wanted to see one. I needed someone to help me do that.

So, I came to realize, that day, that even when we have a wonderful family, great friends, and an amazing support system, sometimes we need a little extra help. That day I made a telephone call to my doctor and told her I thought I had depression and was experiencing suicidal thoughts. My doctor agreed to have me in for an appointment, and immediately I felt a little better, because I knew that help was coming. I immediately felt better also because I knew that I had made the right decision. I visualized the sun of hope coming up from the horizon in my very near future, and I felt more at peace. The good-bye I had said to Rita earlier was not a permanent good-bye, even though I worried that maybe it was. Help would bring us back together. We would always be friends, and no obstacle, even mental illness, could be stronger than the true love we had for one another. When Valentine’s Day came around, I did not have a boyfriend, but I had a true friend. And that was enough for me.

***