Love letters and "D"

I finally finished reading a book yesterday that has been an on going project for a very long time.  My granddaughter lent me the book ages ago.  I think it's time I return it, don't you?

Anyway, toward the end of the book, the author talks about getting old, and the "D" word.  And how nobody really wants to talk about it, but we are all going to do it, even though we tell ourselves it is not going to happen to us.

Well, it is...I hope I go in my sleep, having a dream that does not wake me up screaming.  LOL.

I'm not afraid of death...but I am afraid of how I'm going to die.  Please, Lord, make it quick and not painful.  However, whatever my end might be, I hope I will be able to keep a smile on my face and remain firm in my faith that I will have eternal life.

But, back to the book.  In the chapter about "D", the author makes note about a friend who at the time he, well, "D-ed", returned all his love letters to the women who had sent them to him. 

My first thought was, how did he know where they all were, and if they were "A" or "D"?  My second thought was why would you do that?  It's not that I ever got any love letters to speak of, but I do have five letters from the only man who held my heart in the palm of his hand.  He was the only one who's heart I held in mine.  Those five letters mean more to me (love wise) than just about anything else in the world.  Would I ever have thought of returning them to him, or destroying them.  Never.  I just got done reading the last one, moments ago...it brought me to tears.  This was the man I thought I was going to be my partner forever.

Well, that didn't work out.  Our lives took greatly different paths.

He married someone else, I was devistated, and it became very difficult living in the same town, knowing we would never be.  We met once...in an elevator.  I have often wondered if he had planned that, as he worked in the steel mill just down the street from where I worked.

Seeing him, took my breath away, my knees became weak, I thought I just might
faint.  Have you ever loved somebody that much?  Anyway, we both had to remain composed and keep the conversation polite and proper because elevators in those days all had operators.  So for five, slow, agonizing floors I had to endure being close to him, all the while wanting to leap across the enclosure and smother him in kisses.  The doors opened on the fifth floor...the store's accounting department...we said goodbye.  He went one direction to pay his bill, I in another to the advertising department where I worked.

I never saw him again.

I moved 3,000 miles away.

It was not until my mother passed away we re-connected.  He sent be a beautiful card.  I still have it.  I wrote back thanking him.  From that time on until he passed away a few years later we were constantly in touch.   He would call from time to time, we would talk for a long time. We had a long distance, long overdue love affair.  I miss him terribly.

I think once we had reconnected, we realized we should have been together all our lives, we talked about the could-a, should-a, would-a's.  But, I believe our lives are written in a Big Book somewhere, and the plot plays out in its way, not ours and that our reconnection was part of the plot.  How odd, I'm thinking this morning that I never asked him if the meeting in the elevator was his plan, or simply one of the chapters in the Big Book of our lives.  Either way, it was meant to be.

So, good for the guy who returned his love letters.  I would never, ever do that.  Mine mean too much to me.  What my kids will do with them when I "D" and the time comes to box up my life, I've not a clue...I just know I won't need them any more, cause I'll be in Paradise with him.