Thinking of our times together 

When someone you love leaves you there is a feeling that you are missing a part of yourself. Like one who has had a limb removed. I constantly reach for the missing limb, my love. I may wish for this uncomfortable feeling to leave me so that I can function properly. However, the truth is that the place in my heart that is empty is our love and you  fixing my coffee before work. What is lacking is you sweetheart. It is natural to feel this way because I miss the person that is my other half. After all these years I still remember back in in 1957, when we met for the first time. You were so shy and I was so young.. It took me a while and years of communication by mail for us to realize that it was true and everlasting love.  On May 15, 1963 we were to be married. It was September 1965 that we really discovered everlasting  love. It was your last night in the USA. We spent all day in Columbus Ga.  trying to hold back tears. You were on your way to Vietnam. As your ship pulled away from the dock and you waved goodbye I thought it may be our last. What a joy when you came back shattered but not defeated. After San Diego you retired and I was glad. I have all your love letters from 1960 to 2010. We never stopped writing. If we had something hard to discuss we wrote a letter instead. It was crazy how you called me every hour on the hour from work, waking me up. I was retired but you were not yet. ( I guessed you felt I could sleep during the day with you.) I would pretend to be alert but I’d say to myself what are we going to talk about for ten minutes the next hour. We always had something to talk about. I smile now as I remember those 5 years when you did shift workbefore you retired. 

Alvin and I first met in 1957. His sister Carolyn was my best friend and his older sister Vera did my hair. His mother, “Ma' dear,” was like a mother to me. We spent all summer long going for milk shakes at Diary Queen. Even during his Military tour in Germany and Vietnam we never lost communication. He wrote love letters daily during the Military years. Later, we wrote throughout the years. And happily, I have every letter he ever wrote to me. All but one, and that would be the dreaded “Dear Jane Letter, ” written in summer 1963 just before our breakup. However I tore that into a million pieces and flushed it down the drain.. Alvin soon apologized, and we were as renewed as freshly as fallen snow.

Our saddest time together was in the Fall of 1965. At that time he was on the way to Vietnam. We spent his last USA day together in Columbus GA. At his friends house. On our last night, he wrapped me his overcoat as he bid me farewell and I took the greyhound bus home. Before I left, I watched his ship leave shore for Vietnam and I waved good bye from shore. His best friend's wife drove me to the Bus Station and I road the bus 13 hours to Mobile. His long wool overcoat kept me warm as his musky odor soothe me and prevented me freezing on that cold air conditioned bus.

Our love was so strong until we could not longer live apart. We renewed our love and our vows in 1995 and never emotionally separated again until his death in 2015. This page is to remember our love and to show to the world that love can last even in the face of adversity. May I never forget that true love never dies.