hey all, here is my short story that i finally finished. to some it may seem really sappy but there is much more to it than that. leave any comments you have and bear with me because its a little long but i assure you it isnt all bad....
“With all the ups and the downs, with all the love and passion, I never thought it would end the way that it has.” I said softly surprising myself because I can't tell you why I started to talk to him or what provoked me. But all I can say is that what he said next surprised me even more. To hear such words come from a man of no home, of no decent clothes or barely even any food is as though you are finally hearing what you were too deaf to hear before.
“My daughter, so you are as all that have loved and lost. A day passes another with another and you find in yourself a wound that only time can heal and you can only wait.” he replied with a caring tone gently through his calloused lips
With this I slowly look up pulling my face out of my hands. The sun flashes before my eyes causing me to blink several times and as I open my eyes the last time I look up to see a single spring rose, poised for all to notice, as it lays in the middle of a cleared plot of earth. My ears twitch as the sound of the trickle of water meets them from the creek that lies in front of the bench. It flows with the cold clear water from the mountains that rest far away and its slow current calms even the stressed of hearts and you can’t help but feel as though no other place was supposed to be just right for you as this. I look behind me to the lightly graveled path that sits a good few feet behind us. I look in both ways, one looking back to nothing, and one looking forward for miles and miles. I see the trees, the mighty oaks that line the path on both sides for all the miles that one could walk or run; and they gently find each other barely touching overhead of the path. The sun is painted upon the path, as a painter would do if he were to create an abstract. And there is a break in the trees where this bench lies, solemn and solid; next to the exact place the creek winds its way down to the path and away from it. A masterpiece painted by the hands of nature, none-the-less. You can’t help but find yourself lost of thoughts or words in the beauty of this path scene. Maybe even a tear would fall as you look at the sun painted on the trees during the warm afternoons, or the sparkle of the creek bed in the blue frost moon. But for me it was much more than just that, it was my heart and love that I found here, and lost here.
Still I don’t know why I talk to him. It is as though someone inside of me is calling out to tell my story, my tale of love to another; and free it so it may soar free with the eagles high in the clouds. “My story lasts long, it is not an easy one for the heart to handle, God knows mine can barely handle thinking of it.” I say to him wondering if he wants to hear it.
“ My daughter, I have the time of the world in my palm, and I’d withstand as much time as needed to hear your story.” He says as he turns his head and looks at me with his eyes clear as the bluest sky looking through his disheveled figure.
I look down to the barren ground, where not even a spring lily lies; and then slowly up to the single rose that sits there ahead of me. Red as the love sweetest heart it sways in the wind back and forth, its petals dancing to the rhythm of the air and its stem holding its beautiful child above it. A solemn tear falls to the ground, splashing in the dirt as it flows slowly, yet surely, toward the creek; and as it passes the rose I look up to the trickle of the water and begin to tell the story that I've remembered day after day for a thousand days.
***
It was Spring a thousand days ago when I met him here at this bench. The grass was green as green could ever be and the lilies were blooming and the lilac bush over there was as tall as two men. He came up to me as I sat here eating an apple.
"Excuse me ma'am, but would you mind if I joined you?" he asked me softly in a slight Southern accent. "You know, I've sat at this bench since I was a child and not one Spring day has the lilies and the lilacs around me been so beautiful, so clear to the eye as they are now. It's as though the sun has shown this soldier's eyes what they have been yearning and searching for, forever."
"And what might that be?" I asked him wondering if this was just another lame attempt at a pick-up line. And at that he turned his head to me and I first looked into his deep blue eyes and I was taken aback by the care and the love that I could see in them. His high and tight hair spiked up above his clean-shaven face as hansom as any other man. Yet something about those eyes drew me to him and to his next words.
"Ma'am, I have been to hell and back, nothing can fix that or save me from it for it is the destiny I have chosen. But as I sit here with the sun against me, my heart is open... freed from all that ails it and I sit here a man of Christ, the soldier of Christ. I am one of the few sheep, lost from the herd to fight off the wolves next to the shepherd. But what is all that without love? It is nothing. And I do not pretend to believe in love at first sight so I will not do so here, and I will not waste your time with it. I merely ask of you to let this soldier take you out to dinner. That is all, will you do that for me?"
He had a way with his words, words that could make any girl cry and the words that any girl would ever wish she could hear. I was lucky enough to be one of those girls to hear them. Sadly enough my words weren't as poetic as his, for all it took was a simple yes. One word as all it may be, and one word as all it would take forever.
***
I smile softly as I look back upon that day. I catch myself reliving it breathe for breathe, moment for moment. Suddenly I am brought back to the bench with his voice.
"A smile is a million things, and can be the happiest of a million. Yet even the brightest and largest of smiles sometimes miss a certain touch, a certain gleam. Whether it be a hurt from the past or a fear of the future, it is there as a spot on a white shirt for everyone to see... if they look the right way." He smiles almost toothlessly at me, all the while staring at me with the eyes that I can see once more in him. "And my daughter, I think I can see that in your smile."
"For four months we saw each other and I fell hard for him. Yet there was something missing. I couldn't bring myself to tell him I love him, I knew I did love him, yet every time he would ask me, I just couldn't bring myself to tell him. This was until one day at a party where... but that is neither here nor there. I won't bother you with more."
"My daughter, to say such is a lie as you know it in your heart. I am here for you to listen as no one else would. You cannot bother me, I assure you." He replied again softly, and he was right.
***
We were at one of my friend's house for a party in the fall. We had been dancing and swimming and just all in all having a good time. The leaves were turning orange on the trees and her deck was in perfect view of the numerous trees around the house. A picture worth a thousand words drawn out in front of us. And I had been struggling with my heart that day considerably hard and it was showing to him. He had this way of just knowing that there was something wrong, that something wasn't right. When we went inside to change he asked me about it.
"Darling, I know there is something wrong. What is it?"
"You really don't want to know. I can handle this, please just leave it alone."
"You know damn well that I won't do it. You have been struggling with this for the past 4 months. What else do you need to see, what else do you need and I will do it, I will give you just that?" He said desperately slumping down a little bit to my eye level looking into my heart and soul. But I had been in a bad mood, frustrated more like it with this heavy on my heart and with him always questioning me about it.
"Why can't you just lay off me once dammit? I don't know why this is. I try so hard and you just can't see that!" I stormed off pushing him out of the way onto the deck where all of my friends sat laughing. At once they looked to me and saw me with my eyes of tears and fell silent as he came out behind me and grabbed my arm to turn me around.
"The only reason you're mad at me is because you know you love me God dammit, and I love you! To where would I go without you touching my heart every step of the way? Through the thunders of the hardships and the light of the great, there is never anything I would not do for you. Hold that, realize it and love it as no other and you will find that love does exist... and it exists in us. It is not me that can't see it, it is you sweetheart and I just don't know why."
"I do love you, I love you with all my heart. I'm just so scared to say it because I do not want to lose you. I love you, I love." I gasped out breathlessly after a minute of crying onto him.
"And I love you too. And I promise that no matter what happens you will never lose me to anything or anyone. For I will turn away from what I have grown to love, and that is you and only you." He said back with tears in his eyes.
***
"That was the day where I found my love for him in my heart, forever and ever. To this day I love him with all my heart. We had that love so pure, so true and I still love him to this day." I said taking my tear trodden hands away from my face once more to look up to his sunken in face and surprised to see a single tear rolling down to his smile.
"And finally your heart has learned to love. To love is a gift that we all cherish yet few fully understand its power and glory. But for you the love was the deepest, the truest in all that it could be. You grew to love him and though afraid to say so in the fear of losing the one love you called your own, you took that jump into his heart as he did to yours. That my daughter is what love should be." He said with softly once more though his war-torn lips.
"You're... you're right. You totally hit that right on the nail." I told him taken aback at what he had just said because it was exactly what I had found, what I had.
"And yet I feel there is more to your story. An ending to bring this all to a close. Please my daughter share it with me."
"The day he left for war, the last day that I saw him."
***
He was a soldier, he was proud to claim the title and was proud to serve what he loved. He went to war to fight for his country and to fight for all those he loved and loved him. The night he left he took me back to this bench and the night had taken over the day and the starry sky was clear to all eyes and the moon shined especially bright that night. He took me out to where the lilies had grown and bloomed once more this year.
"My sweetheart, it has been one year since I met you here on this bench. Please do not say anything until I am done. For I am going to pour my heart into this one moment and I ask that you fall for every word, because I know I will do just that. I love you, always have, always will for the rest of my days and more. There is never a night when I don't dream of you, never a second of the day where you aren't in my heart. I could not be the man I am today if we had never met one year ago. I am a man of God, a soldier of God. But without love it is nothing, and how can that be? I would not know because I have love in my heart, your love, and it is the greatest of all on this Earth. My girl, my darling, my sweetheart, I want to spend my days with you, my seconds by your side and my hours being yours. Will you marry me?" and he pulls out the ring from the pocket of his dress blue uniform and takes my hand waiting for my answer.
"Yes, yes I will." I smile longingly into his gorgeous eyes as he slips the ring onto my finger.
"Well ma'am I am sorry to say it but I must leave you tonight. But not without anything for you." And from behind him he pulls a red rose beautiful as the sunset on a warm summer afternoon and lays it gently on my hand. "I will be back to marry you here at this bench and I will be back to love you for the rest of my days. Wait just a little bit longer my fiancé and will marry you and love you forever. I promise. For I could not live a life without seeing your eyes." He kissed the back of my hand twice and then once more on my lips and I had never felt such love as I did that night in his kiss. Then he carried me to the car where he drove me home and then drove off to his destiny, to what he had always loved in him.
***
"Three months later I answered the door to see two soldiers dressed in their dress blue uniforms with their eyes as somber as a rainy day covering up the sun. And as I opened the door I fell to my knees for I knew then what had happened. That I would never see nor hear my love once more, and that has stuck with me until now. They told me he fought with the bravery of a thousand soldiers as he gave his life for his brothers. They said he was a very brave man and I should be proud of him. And yet here I am, a thousand days later I sit on this bench day after day looking for an answer. He had broken his promise and I just don't see why, I just don't see why he would ever do that. He was supposed to come back, come back to me and now I'll never see him again." I cried out to the afternoon with the tears flowing as the river down my cheeks to my pants.
"My daughter no words of mine could sooth your heart, for it is one that has been touched and now it has been blinded to that touch. My words that I give to you come from Christ, for these words have helped me through my life and now I pass them on to you. May they soothe your heart and soul and heal it where time has failed. They come from the first book of Corinthians chapter 13, starting at verse four and they are as follows:
Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps
no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails."
And while he said those last words, he breathed his last while holding my hand gently with his surprisingly soft warm hands. This man, never loved by any, poured out his heart to me and showed me all that I needed in my heart to love once more. I got up and laid him down softly on the bench and covered his torso with his coat and kissed him gently away to Christ.
And with that I start to walk on down the path where I was too afraid to walk for a thousand days. I look back to the bench and I see nothing but a single red rose lying there on its side where he used to be. And around the bench the grass had been reborn and the lilies and the roses lined the creek and the lilac bush sprung to life with its millions of tiny buds. And at last I smile as I walk on down the path. I walk on with my heart to the wind, sails open wide to fly to where it will lead me; and I follow it to the ends of my days.
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