Lost Love
It wasn’t love at first sight or anything. We were
just in the same fellowship in college. In our final year we both became
executives in the fellowship and you were the president.
We got close in the course of working together as a
team but even closer when we both had to resit a course each after our final
exams.
I remember those innocent years when the innocence
of youth was undefiled. Our friendship was deep, we had so much in common.
Unconsciously I feel in love with you. I spent a lot of time thinking about you
it was until we left for home after the resit that I realized I had fallen in
love with you. It was such a delicious feeling. I practically was floating on
air with the way I was feeling.
Then you proposed to me, I saw it coming, we have
gotten so close that even when we are apart for weeks but the time we see it
was like we saw each other yesterday. I was so happy, it was on a easter Sunday
you visited me and we went out and you said you have fallen deeply in love with
me and couldn’t imagine not spending the rest of your life with me. Such
heavenly music to my ears. I said YES immediately, there was nothing to pray or
think about. I had done all my thinking and praying.
The courtship started, our hearts were so pure and
entwined we hid nothing away from each other. You were my soul mate, my first
love. I thanked God every day for you, I prayed for you more than I prayed for
me. Every member of my family met you
and they liked your accent.
You were cool, gently and caring. Above all you
loved God with a passion. I was intoxicated with your love. You showed me what
it felt to be loved completely not for any reason but for being me. And for two
years we waxed stronger. We made plans for the future. We talked about
everything, our dreams, our vision and you made sure you shared a word with me
anytime you visited and I saw you fulfilling your role as a priest in our
future home and I thought I was the luckiest girl that ever lived.
Then we started arguing about the future, before
now we hardly disagreed you had this sweet way of making me see things your own
way and I just happily went along. You wanted to go into a profession that I
thought it was a sheer waste of talent on your end, it had started as hobby but
you fell in love with it along the way. In our part of the world people in that
profession are usually unschooled not a profession for a college graduates. I
thought the more I argued the better you see things my way. you didn’t see
yourself doing any other things and this exasperated me to no end. I felt you
were sentencing yourself to life imprisonment with poverty. It didn’t diminish
my love for you in anyway. I thought it was a phase you will outgrow when the
time comes for us to prepare for our wedding and you see the reality of the
responsibility of being a husband and father because people in this
professional were low income earners. I began to notice that your enthusiasm
about us began to drop but I thought you just pissed that you couldn’t sway me
this time.
I had a commitment in another part of the country
so we had some thousand of miles between us we didn’t see each other for six
month and I said in another five months I will be done and we will thrash this
out face to face. Until the day you dropped the bombshell, I didn’t see that one
coming at all, I wasn’t prepared for the tsunami. You said a man profession is
the pivot of his life and you don’t see the reason we should continue if we are
not in one accord over what is going to be the financial pivot of our home.
Immediately I said you can be whatever you want to be, I support with my whole
heart but your mind was made up. I couldn’t change your mind. I didn’t believe
it, I was in denial for one year. I couldn’t believe you will just throw away
something so beautiful, so perfect with this flimsy excuse and I waited for you
to come back but alas you never looked back. After one year I accepted it was
finally over and I stopped praying about reconciliation. I couldn’t help
comparing every man that came my way with you none matched you not even up to
50%.it was bad. I knew you had moved on.
Some five or so years later you asked for my
forgiveness for breaking my heart.
Some six years or so later, you told me the real
reason you broke my heart, it wasn’t because I wasn’t in support of your chosen
career. It was because of what I confided in you about my family- a step my
mother took to protect my brother from what she though could lead to his
untimely death which I wasn’t aware of when it happened I stumbled on that
information by chance, my family didn’t tell me knowing I am a Christian and
won’t support such a thing and that action she took scared you and you thought
my family dine with the devil and you sought counsel, your counsellor told you
if you marry me, my mother will be seeking help from other sources outside God, God help us if we experience delay in
childbearing we might go to seek a child from anywhere. It scared the hell of
you because your dad is a pastor and it was so strange to you, you wouldn’t
want to touch it with a ten foot pole. I told you, my mum wasn’t a Christian
and she had acted based on her convictions, you didn’t know me because if you
did you will realize I loved God the same way you do and won’t involve with
anything outside God even if my life depends on it and this is the gospel truth
but it was already late. We are both married to other people. You claimed it was a difficult decision for
you to make that time.
I haven’t seen you in almost 19 years but we have
spoken on the phone about a dozen times over the period. What I felt with you I
was never able to replicate it. I do wonder if it is the same with you. I
missed you and mourned losing your love for years until time dulled the pain
and gradually my heart returned to its original default setting.
Every now and then I wonder what would have
be.
Jacintha
Waooh!! Touching.
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