Gravitational Pull

She was five years old when he was born.  The following year, while she was learning to read and write, he was learning to walk and talk. They didn’t know each other.  Not yet. She lived here and he lived there, far away.

They were both the middle child with an older brother and a younger sister, and they both lived in cities but spent most of their weekends in the country, breathing fresh air, running amok, and gaining wisdom and memories from their grandmothers.

He was a typical teenager, learning to drive his father’s cars and getting into mischief, while she busied her life, graduating from high school and college. The year she married here, he graduated from high school and went to college there, and by the time he was ready to venture out in life, she was settled in her marriage with a child, a Master’s degree, and a career.

He moved a little closer, a lot less far away, and he soon married and started his family. They each spent the next several years raising and loving their families. He had moved closer still, and by then she had three children; he had two.

They both had successful careers. She transformed beautiful, young minds into future readers and thinkers; he transformed beautiful woods into useful and sturdy creations that everyone admired.  

Their marriages were not as successful, and he divorced first.  He assuaged his loneliness by raising his sons and working nonstop in his furniture business. She divorced a few years later and found her nest had emptied on its own, her children grown and gone.   

A few years later, they met, whether by sheer luck or divine intervention.  These two met, gravitating toward each other.  He still lived there and she lived here, but they met. They fell in love, just like their young adult children were doing, so he proposed and she accepted. He offered to move here but she decided she preferred to move there.  He had come all this way to meet her, the least she could do was to take the last few steps so that they could be there together.