Some seventy years ago, my mother was a 16 year old girl, attending a little high school in Whitley County, Indiana. When she was 18 she met and married my father, who was four years older. For years thereafter, when they would attend her high school reunion, one man (his name is Guy) would always tell my father, "you got the prettiest girl in our class."
After graduation my mother met and married my father. My father always put my mother on a pedestal. He treated her like royalty, and he always did, up until the time he died in May 2000. About a year later, Mother moved back to our hometown of South Whitley. She has a cute little house that looks like a palace inside (suitable for the Queen, you know). About that time, Guy, who’s own wife had died some time prior, started courting Mother again. He was very subtle about it, arranging outings with her and other "girls" who went to school with them. Mother finally gave him an ultimatum and said "if you want to see me, you’re going to have to stop seeing all those other women."
The week after my open heart surgery Mother insisted that I go to South Whitley and stay with her for awhile. I did, though I was pretty independent from the start. I would get up at 6 a.m. every day and walk out the driveway to pick up the paper. And I’d make my own breakfast. Mother would sleep in and wouldn’t get around to fixing her breakfast until 10 or 11. I lasted there just one week, I was itching to get home and be on my own again. The last night I spent there, Mother had her first date alone with Guy. They went to a dinner in Fort Wayne. Mother came into the house later that evening, and she sort of giggled and told me "He asked if it would be all right to kiss me good night." I asked her what she said, and she said "I told him I supposed it would be all right." Then she told me he said he’d kissed her before when she was sixteen. She said "I don’t remember that!"
They’ve been dating steadily for the past two years. They sit and hold hands and watch television, and then he drives home to Pierceton, about twelve miles away. He calls her when he gets home. Guy is now 87 and Mother is 86. They have gone to Ohio to a relative of Guy’s where they made apple butter two years in a row. He sent me an "itinerary" and was very sure to point out they’d be sleeping in separate rooms. Mother says "we have so much fun together, we just laugh all the time." They see one another nearly every day, and go to community events in South Whitley and Pierceton. He drives her to Fort Wayne for her doctor appointments, and for other things. He comes to all of our family get-togethers, and she goes to all of his family get-togethers, unless they happen to occur simultaneously.
Reminds me of a song. "It doesn’t really matter when, our roads are gonna cross again, It doesn’t really matter when But somewhere down the road I know that heart of yours will come to see That you belong with me."
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