True Love...

I was called up late in the evening one night because a family member of a friend had passed away.  I was asked to come down for support.  When I arrived at the nursing home...with my friend...the room was filled with people...milling...talking...and dividing up her belongings.  The more that items were shoved in my hands...the more awkward I felt...who was this woman?...did anyone know anything about her?...why had she never married?...what had been her story?...Everyone has one...

A week later I was invited to come and help clean out her house that she had lived in most of her adult life...and  once again...the rooms were filled with people...some relatives...some not...ripping through drawers...auctioning off jewelry and pieces of furniture....all the while...I kept wondering...who was this woman?  I mean deep inside...what were her dreams?....did she have any regrets?...

I obviously was not working at the speed that others had hoped for and so I was ordered to her bedroom to go through her desk and dresser.  I was given a garbage bag..."..most of that will be trash..." It was evident that the people in the house didn't know me either or they would have given me the oven to clean....instead I was left alone with this woman's most personal belongings...stockings....embroidered hankies...slips...a lipstick and a large box.

I opened the box and there before me were over twenty years of letters and cards...addressed to My Sweetheart....My Love...As I moved through the box...someone stepped into the room and caught my dilly dallying and said, "If those are old letters...just throw them out."  "May I have the box?"  "Do whatever you want with them....they are of no value."  So...I took them home...all of them...every card...every letter home....and I sat down and read them....

Hours later....I didn't know everything about her but here is what I did know...when B was in her twenties...she fell in love with P...who had been married...he went to war and came home to his wife in another's bed...they divorced...but since he was Catholic...the church would not allow his marriage to be annulled....even though it had only lasted a mere six months.

P fell madly in love with B too....but she was Catholic and could not marry P because the church still regarded him as married to his former spouse.  Both of them....devout Catholics and honoring their religious beliefs....didn't run away and marry...they didn't go against their families...and they didn't turn against each other....they remained true...to each other.

For over twenty years...neither married...he never forgot her birthday...an anniversary...or just to say I love you...She kept everything he gave her...every napkin....matchbook...gift card and she never had eyes for another man.  No one could ever speak of a time that he had stayed the night or any "indiscretion" and....although many recognized his name...no one acknowledged him of importance to them...or to her.  

Obviously a romantic at heart...B was a keeper of sentimental things and had often jotted down sayings or thoughts...which she tucked away.  In the midst...of these love letters...was a poem that she had written for P and never given him.  Although...it would be tempting to edit the poem...I feel that it deserves....in it's simplicity...to speak from her heart and not mine.....

When you and I love must part
can sorry break your tender heart.
I in a distant land-I must roam
sleep and die for you alone.
All this I wish to say
night bids me go I cannot stay,
with burdens great upon my mind
you will in this a secret find.

P died several years before B....never to love another than her...and B passed...never having married because her heart belonged to him.  If I were a praying woman....I would pray that one day someone would have that much love for me....a true love...