My First Love Connects After Many Years

My first love sent a Facebook invitation this week after many years incommunicado. Then, she sent me a letter. I had just left home at 17 when I encountered her in the lobby of my university. Her raven black hair, sparkling blue eyes, and gently swelling cardigan would distract almost any idiotic boy from noticing the enormous compassionate heart that lay underneath the sweater. Yet, boy did this boy ever notice.

I was in love within weeks and passionately wanted to marry her. However, I had a problem. My family was financing my education toward a master's degree and my family honor code dictated that the cash flow must end when I took on the adult status of marriage. Still, my honor had its limits. Thus, I began wondering in my mind how many semesters I could sustain a secret engagement without losing the spark of love or woman of my dreams.

She had contrasting struggles. My princess was a girl from Appalachia whose cousins apparently passed her over for marraige. She felt an irrational psychological pressure. A good hillbilly girl doesn't give up the milk till the cow is sold, but may feel some urgency to confirm a buyer before a rather early and arbitrary "best-consumed-by" milk expiration date. (Yes, we humans are kinda silly, but God loves us anyway.)

On my 18th birthday, a friend told me I was summoned to a particular empty building. There I found my sweet angel reclining in white satin attire on a black velvet blanket with a lit candle and a chocolate cake. Brothers and sisters, I have been to her mountaintops and I have seen her promised land, but it wasn't just a dream. I wouldn't trade that night for 100 more years of life. Yet shortly thereafter, our relationship began to unravel.

I was too prideful to tell her that I doubted my ability to provide for her plus a lengthy education to even better provide for her without my family's help. Big mistake. She was too insecure to tell me that her delicate heart couldn't sustain faith in me forever without more expressions or symbols of my committment. My mind pondered while her heart wandered. One day she gave up hope, as a sleazy con artist who was a companion of mine offered fast promises and claimed to be dying of cancer for a sympathy pitch. I had failed my vulnerable princess and lost her forever.

(If Jeff McClain of Council Bluffs, Iowa is still alive [because no 5-year-old girl or wheel-chair-bound senior has taken time to kick his slimy ass], I advise him never to visit Mexico. It's a very dangerous country ... at least for him. And while I would never threaten homicide [since that is illegal], I plainly state with God as my witness: if he and I ever meet while floating around on rafts in international waters, he is a deadman!)

Now, where was I before that rude interruption? Oh yes, I recall. The hottest piece of ... uh ... pecan pie East of the Mississippi sent me a lovely letter yesterday. She was quite nervous. My former girlfriend figured I had numbed the pain of her rejection by becoming bitter and angry at her. She figured wrong. Though I hadn't enjoyed the humiliation of standing in the snow beneath her dormitory window begging for another chance, I had chosen to accept responsibility.

I had put her in a sacred corner of my heart reserved exclusively for my first love, who I adored from day one and will adore till my last breath. (Geeky English teachers can feel free to replace who with whom while I emote on like the drunken half-Irishman I am.) Sure it hurts that she rejected me for men with smaller penises, but I strongly disagree with Buddha about renouncing all attachments to avoid pain. Amor es dolor (love is pain)! Yet, only love makes life worth living. I never contacted her over the years, because I wanted to respect her feelings, but I'm so happy she contacted me. God bless you, Kelly, for inspiring my dull boyish heart (and nearly every other anatomical part). You forever rock, baby. This old song, which my born-on-a-farm dad used to play with his harmonica when I was a child, is for you: