Everything changed when you walked through that classroom door senior year of high school. Your dirty blonde hair, gorgeous smile, dimples, and light blue eyes captured my heart right then and there. We were just teens at the time, but I never knew that I would fall in love with you. I had this feeling. I didn’t know what it was then. But seeing you made my heart beat rapidly, I became flustered with the words I was speaking, and I could feel the butterflies tickling the inside of my stomach every time I heard your name.
I was willing to do anything and everything for you. But you didn’t know that. It was a killer instinct, to want to be next to you or talk to you whenever I could. That was my mission. To talk to you, to be in your presence whenever you were around, to make you smile and laugh. “Make yourself known. Make it known that you care” I would tell myself.
Watching you from afar was like watching my mother watch my father slowly die from cancer. Slowly watching him slip away, loving him more each day, but couldn’t do anything about it. The time we spent together was never enough. I knew things were soon to be fading and that I was losing you when senior year came. You were going your way, and I was going mine. You deserved better than me. You deserved all the happiness in the world. The happiness I thought I could bring you. Doing anything just to see your perfect smile spread across your face was everything to me. Knowing you were content in life, made me content. But, that wasn’t the life I was made to live. Or so I thought.
Ever since I was a child, I would watch the way my father would love my mother. Doing the little things, doing whatever she asked. Whether it be bringing her flowers home after work on Friday nights or just holding her hand when we were out and about around the town. I remember mom getting all dressed up sometimes and dad would be dressed up too. Kristi, my babysitter, called it “date night”. He would wait at the end of the stairs for her, twiddling his thumbs and looking up the stair case every so often to see if she was ready to leave. When she was finally at the top of the stairs after what seemed like forever for my father, she would say, “Well, how do I look Lou?” I would stare at him in fascination as I could see how much love he had for this one woman in his eyes. They would glow. And I wanted to feel what my father had, to have that same glow when I looked at the person I loved.
They have been married for fifteen years.
“We were high school sweethearts” mom said.
She told me the story of how they ran away together to South Carolina in their late teens. Uncle Donny, mom’s older brother, was down there and mom figured he would be able to help them out. They got married in a small white church just the two of them and they were happy as could be. It was the basic sappy love story for them, but to me it was so much more. They couldn’t be separated, no matter what. They could only afford a rundown apartment and dad had to manage two jobs for the both of them, working as a construction worker during the day, and security guard in training during the night. Mom wanted to go to college to become a nurse, but she ended up getting pregnant with Oliver, my older brother. They fought and argued like every couple does, but they always ended up pouring their feelings to one another in the end. Telling each other how much they loved each other and that without one another they couldn’t survive.
“When your mother became pregnant with you, she was the happiest person you could ever know. No matter what the day would be like, she would always have a smile on her face. If she had a bad day and nothing went her way, she would always be happy to know that every day grew closer to meeting you. She loves you so much, I hope you know that. Listen, I want you to take care of your mother. She is a strong, open hearted woman and you know that.”
Father then took my hands in his and said, “But for the days to come, she will be weak. She will need you. Both of you. She will need your love and support. She has made me the happiest man in the whole world, and I think you know that. Now it’s time for you to make her proud; same with your brother. Do anything and everything she asks you to do. Make me proud. I love you both so very much. Make me… make me proud…”
And that was the last thing my father ever said to me. I watched him slowly slip away. His eyes slowly closed and his grasp on my hands slowly eased. I felt him let go, and I just squeezed his hands tighter, as if I could somehow regain his presence if I squeezed all I could. I felt tears slide down my face, down my cheeks and onto my shirt. I turned to look at Oliver who was standing at the end of the bed and he just stared at father, baffled to believe that he was actually gone.
Oliver was never one to show emotion. He always kept to himself. He was quiet, shy, and never really said much. He was strange and never socialized with other kids in school. But the friends that he did have, made him seem as though he were a social butterfly.
Behind me came a loud sob as I felt my shoulder being squeezed. Mom began to cry. I let go of fathers hands and instantly got up from the chair I was sitting in and held her. I hugged her tightly as I felt the shoulder of my t-shirt become more dampened by her tears.
“Oh Lou, you were the best husband, father, and best friend I could ever ask for.” mom said in between sobs.
I held her as she cried and asked God as to why he took my loving, sweet, and amazing father from her. He didn’t deserve to leave this world so soon. Seeing her like this killed me inside. All I could do was hold her and let the tears of love and loss shed and fall to the floor.
