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.
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