An old letter to a timeless love....

This was a private letter to someone....who's description is beyond mere words to me.

Immortal Beloved, I'm not writing this for any other reason other than I wanted to write it somewhere and for some reason I didn't want to put it in my journal. I wanted to share a singular thought with you. At this moment as I signed on to write this to you, the Original "Save the Last Dance" by the Drifters came on. At just the right moment too, it's one of many, many old songs I have on this play list and it was that one that had to come on as I typed my first words to you. Anyway, today is a dreary overcast afternoon...sometime past noon and I just finished ushering the kids out to the back yard to play as I wait for my seasoned grilled chicken and rice to cool for lunch. As I do this, my Dad has been reading the paper this morning, watching PBS and has made a few calls. A few calls to my grand mother's house, my Aunt's cell, and my Mom's work. You see, it's about that time my Mom should be pulling up from her job. That beat up, paint peeled, upholstery stained with the lives of a couple generations of children, family van, should make it's way to the front of our house any minute now. It's an hour and a half past the time my Mom gets out of work and we haven't received a phone call. As my Father paces in a subtle way, but very clearly uneasy, he ends up at one point in the living room, standing in front of the door, looking outside like a boy...waiting. His head drifts to the left and to the right as if to say, maybe on this day she will drive up from the opposite end of the street. Maybe I'll catch her at the moment she rounds that corner. Watching him, I couldn't help but relate and recall the many times I was in that position. My mind and my heart immediately stepped into my father's as I felt those days I worked at our home. Remembering that feeling I would get without looking at my watch but feeling like it was about that time you arrived from work. At times it was when you went out and you're excursion or errand ran just late enough that the tinge or worry had set in. In any case, there I was...finding myself, like my father, standing in front of the window peering out every 10 minutes, hoping to catch you as you drove up. At times for lack of a screen door I would open the door and stand under that poor excuse for a porch. Perhaps if I threw the trash out, I would tell myself, I would find you driving up as I walked to or from the dumpster. So, I watch my dad, even now,...with no TV on,..no music, just his uneasiness at the unknown whereabouts of the person he loves. A longing. Maybe the other 23 hours of the day as they work, or run an errand or do their own thing they are content..at ease in the absence of the other. It is at these moments, those slivers of time between those other moments when we feel that connection. To miss, to long, to love someone. Because, I see him and I see myself. If it were anyone else, my Dad would go on living, watch ESPN, read the paper, have lunch. I think it's at these moments, when he thinks perhaps it's taken too long, that those thoughts creep in. What would I do if she were ever gone? If she never drove up, if she were not in his life? I see a man, who loves a women and doesn't "need" but "wants" her to be with him. Not two halves of a whole but complimentaries of one another. He looks out that door, as I did. Wondering what life would be like without her. That is love. I'm not ashamed to have waited for you. I feel a little better everyday and understand that I don't "need" a women to wait at the door for me. She doesn't have to get up or peer out...but I do want someone that, in those moments,...thinks of me; gets a pang as I did, because there is a longing. A want, to Not want to live a life without me. Not a take it or leave it person. Where is the connection, the beauty of mutual partnership that God created for us to be happy, if she goes on without that gut feeling at his prolonged absence? I don't know what this is, or where we stand. I'm as confused as ever I can be, but that's where we began. In obscurity, with no real boundaries or structure and maybe that's where we'll end. I want someday to look out that front door like my father for the woman I love and have my heart sigh when she drives up. Someday.....

Well, there she is, my Mom's home. Thanks for listening. Rudy