GCC - Not The Last

CHAPTER 1

The beauty of the northwest coastline can usually hold my attention for hours. The shifting blues and greens of the river rushing by, the rusted old ships slowly moving in or out of the port, and the forested green hillsides I can see out my window here in Astoria cannot hold my focus today though.  After only a minute, my eyes are pulled back to the plain, white printer paper I hold in my hand. The nondescript font in dull, black ink should not be able to cause the terrible tornado of mixed feelings that my benumbed mind is trying to make sense of. If I read the letter one more time, will I be able to take in the meaning. Will I be able to process the way my life has changed in the few moments it took me to read the words? My fingers trace a crooked line down the trail of Samantha's tears wishing she were here at this moment, that she could have told me in person, and that we could share each other's grief.

But, that's the thing...It's not just grief I feel. Reassurance. Faith. Love. His hand on my back, just at my waistline, as though he is telling me to trust what I know. I look away from that sad note, telling me of Lee's death in Iraq as I focus on that feeling of his hand on my back. There's another paper I hold with the new letter, but this one is very old, years old, on blue paper which has been handled so many times that the creases are falling apart. I'm not sure why I retrieved this blue letter from my keepsake box when I learned of Lee's death, but I guess the words on it comfort me still. I look out again at the serene sight of the river as life there continues going on and close my eyes before the letter pulls them back to the unbelievable words, words that seem to break a promise. As I close my eyes and focus on the impression of a gentle touch at my waist, I am transported back to that time, years ago, when I learned that love was not what I expected at all, a time when I found out love was boundless.

CHAPTER 2

Samantha and I had been friends for four years, more than friends really. We were sisters of the heart. At a time when I needed a family and a place to live, Samantha's family reached out to me and gave me a place to stay and so much more. Her family were Samoans and she said they didn't believe young women should be out on their own. They wanted me to come stay with them as long as I wanted to.

I came from a devastatingly broken family. The man whose name appeared on my birth certificate, who was the father of my older brothers and sisters, had been gone for over a year when I was conceived. I guess none of the string of boyfriends that my mother moved in and out of her life wanted to claim me as their child because my mom decided to make her ex-husband financially responsible for me. So she took him to court and said he was his daughter.  His name appears on my birth certificate even though he never appeared in my life.  I grew up never having anyone that I could call daddy. I even called my first stepfather by his first name rather than daddy even though he came into my life when I was just three months old. Over my first 16 years, there were three stepfathers that my mom married and divorced before finally finding the "man of her dreams," a sweet man who was able to put up with her controlling nature.

Violence had raged through our home more often than childhood disease did. With five children in the house, you can imagine how often that was. All of us kids were strong. We had to be. If we were hurt or scared and we cried, we were hit, or if it was a bad day, beaten. By the time I was four, I had learned this lesson so well that I walked into a doctor's office on a broken leg. The doctor took one look at me and said, "It can't be broken or else she wouldn't be walking on it." I didn't have the words to tell him that it was a survival skill to be able to ignore the pain and do what I had to do. I'll never forget how he looked at me when he came back from seeing the x-rays. He obviously couldn't make sense of it.

I never could make sense of our lives either. I remember from the time I was little I wanted a loving family who may not always be happy, but would always be there for each other. I knew that kind of family had to exist and I kept waiting for a miraculous event that would turn our fragmented family into a loving, supportive unit. Survival of the fittest means each member of the group fending for his or her self. Each child in our family competed to be the one who avoided the berating words or the beating. If you care too much about another person, you will want to protect them, not turn negative attention onto them. To maintain the ability to deflect slaps, hits, and kicks, my older siblings learned to build walls between themselves and other members of the family in order to be able to protect themselves. I didn't see any way that all of this negativity could be changed and in the end, it didn't have to. I had the answer to my prayers in a totally unexpected way and that was Samantha's family.

Daddy and Mama (what I called Samantha's parents) became my parents. Daddy disciplined me along with the rest of the kids, and there were lots of kids. Mama insisted on letting any of her 8 children and their kids come home whenever they needed to. At the time that I moved in with them, there were 15 people in a three-bedroom house. I always used to marvel that even though it should have felt crowded, it didn't. It felt warm, cozy, and safe. I joined in the chores with everyone else and brought home groceries with my paycheck like everyone else. If I went out on a date, Mama and Daddy insisted that the boy come in and meet them first. If I was sick, I was waited on until I was better. I learned to speak the Samoan language and dance the dances. I had finally found the loving, united family I had dreamed of throughout my childhood and was sure that life couldn't get any better.

Remember the old cliché: "It's always darkest before the dawn?" Well, life did have some amazing surprises waiting for me, but first, there was a toll to pay. Someone once told me that death is the tax you paid for having love in your life and I found out what that meant when Daddy got sick. He was diagnosed with cancer in his kidneys and life became a series of hospital visits, each longer than the last. Samantha and I didn't know how to handle this new situation. We did what we could to take care of the younger kids to take some of the burden off of Mama so she could spend more time with Daddy. But, watching the two of them as they awaited the inevitable was so strange for me.

Up to then, my birth family had been the only example of family members leaving that I had seen. A stepfather would leave or one of my siblings would be sent away and the general attitude toward the person's departure would be that they no longer existed. Ties were forever broken. The departure was more of a disappearance; it was as if the person never existed. Now, watching Mama and Daddy preparing for Daddy's impending death, it became apparent to me that they weren't planning on never seeing each other again. They truly believed that their love would outlast time and they would be together again someday! They hurt because they knew they were going to miss each other, but they rejoiced because their love was the enduring kind, the eternal kind. To be honest, I thought they were just trying to make it easier on themselves. I didn't believe that anyone could know that they would be together forever. "Until death do us part" was a phrase that I had always heard and believed in. I also didn't think most people made it that long. I wondered how anyone could believe that they would be together forever. I wondered what it would be like to look into someone's eyes and see eternity.

In planning for the future, we all realized that Mama would need to move closer to her older son in order for him to help support the kids she had taken on and since I had a good job and was ready, I moved out into an apartment. Still, Mama and Daddy kept tabs on my life, making sure I was behaving myself (not that there was anything to worry about) and had whatever I needed. Knowing I had their love and support, I felt ready to learn to deal with the world on my own. Mama and Daddy both continued to reassure me that I was loved no matter where I went.

Daddy eventually worsened to the point that there was no hope that he would leave the hospital and calls went out to all of the extended family. Samantha and I made trip after trip to the airport, train and bus stations, picking up family members who came to say their final goodbyes. Brothers and sisters whom I had never met were coming from all over the country. Aunts, uncles, and cousins poured in. Daddy died while the flock was gathering. I was on my way to sing in a choir performance when I got the word that he was gone and because I wanted to honor him, I went ahead and sang that night. I knew that somehow he was hearing me.  I felt his presence near me and I was in awe.

Sometimes during the darkest hours, you will see a small light and its brightness is beyond what would be expected because of the contrast. My first sight of Lee was like that. I had not actually met Lee yet, but showed up at the house to take a niece shopping for funeral clothes. As I came in the back door to get the young one, I glanced a man standing across the living room, talking to someone else. I can't tell you anything about the other person, but when I saw that beautiful young man, something deep inside of me came alive. I was in mourning because of death, but something came to life within my soul at that moment, something that hadn't existed before. It was a glance, nothing more and then I was off again. For the next few hours, his face stayed in my mind. I had literally met 100s of relatives in the last few days and none of them had touched me the way Lee had. I asked the niece I had taken shopping who he was. He was in the army, she said, and had not been home in about 7 years. He had actually been raised by a white family rather than by his own family. You see Polynesians often give the gift of a child to someone they love and respect and Lee was one of those gifts. Because of this, he had not stayed in touch with the family as much as did some of the other siblings, so I had not seen nor heard of him before. But, now, after having seen him across the room, I knew that I would never have him out of my mind or my heart again.

The next day, I was talking to a neighbor friend, Carolyn, who had also seen Lee and she was wistfully telling me she was hoping to get some time alone with him because she wanted to get him to ask her out. He was the most handsome man either of us had ever seen. At that point, I hadn't thought of going out with him because I thought of him as a brother. Besides, I had had my miracle for this lifetime. My Samoan family, so kind and loving, was the answer to my prayers and you couldn't expect to such awesome miracles in one lifetime. So, I truly expected nothing more out of life than to just enjoy being amongst them. But, later that afternoon, Samantha came over for a get together and told me that Lee wanted to see me. To this day, I don't know why that affected me the way it did because we had not even spoken to each other yet, but when she said he wanted to see me, my dancer's body took over and I took flight, jumping up and kicking my feet out, throwing out my arms to touch my toes and yelled "Whoo hoo!" Carolyn, who was with us punched me in the arm and said, "I wanted him!" I laughed from my very core and the smile that spread across my face was the biggest of my life. I tried to contain it and told Carolyn that Lee just wanted to talk to me, not take me out. He didn't even know me, I protested and so he couldn't want more. Besides, he was only going to be there for a week, so he wouldn't be thinking of any romantic ideas. But, still, there was a certain something that could not be squelched again growing in my soul. Something I could not deny even though I didn't understand it. I told Samantha to tell Lee I'd be over the next day and then spent the rest of the night thinking about him and trying to figure out what the heck was going on inside of me.

I knew he was mine and I was his and I had no idea why I would think that. There were plenty of guys in the group of young adults that I hung out with who I had been attracted to. Many of them were absolutely wonderful and really good friends. Yet, with no one had I felt that certainty that I was his and I would be with him someday. I knew this for a fact with Lee and wondered what he would think if I told him. Was it all my imagination? Wishful thinking? Would Lee think I was a nutcase if I told him? I decided I should put first things first and go talk to him without spilling my guts to him on the first meeting.

The next day, I went to the house and there he was. When I looked into his dark brown eyes, it was as though joy and peace filled me to the brim. I didn't worry about what he would think any more. We just hung out and talked about plans for the coming funeral. He wanted to know how I came to be with the family and I told him my story. I wanted to know why he hadn't been around the family and he told me his. Throughout our conversation, I wanted to touch his face, hand, or his shoulder, but I did not trust myself. I had the feeling that once I touched him, I'd have to tell him what I was feeling. Although I could see in his eyes that he was feeling something too, I didn't trust life that much yet. My rational self kept telling my feeling self that I was wrong, that I should not trust what I thought I saw. Lee was repainting the house, getting it ready to sell, while we talked and after about 15 minutes reached out with the paint brush and painted my nose. I laughed at his silliness and decided that I shouldn't fight the impulse to touch him. Though there were many people right around us, when I first put my hand on his arm, stillness descended in our private world and we just looked at each other. I no longer wondered how I would tell Lee what I felt. I knew he wouldn't think I was nuts because he felt it too. And, suddenly, I felt the same thing. He said, "It's so weird that this would happen at Daddy's funeral" and I agreed that it seemed rather a strange time.

Lee decided to stay an extra week so we could get to know each other, but he had to go back to his job and his other obligations. Lee's past life included being in the Army and having girlfriends and an ex-wife. He had not wanted to get married, but he had gotten one of his girlfriends pregnant when he was stationed in Germany and the Army expects you to take care of your obligations, so they married. When he came back home, she didn't want to come back with him, so they divorced. Still, he hadn't expected to ever meet anyone else he wanted to marry either and couldn't see staying celibate for the rest of his life, so his life also included a girlfriend that he had to go break up with. He had tried doing it over the phone, but she insisted they talk in person, so that was on his agenda.

I had not planned on getting married any time soon, either. I had seen too many bad marriages and wanted to work to buy a house before I got married and had kids. But, now, Lee and I had been thrown into a different world than either of us had imagined. We KNEW we belonged to each other in a way neither of us thought was possible before. I can't explain to you how, but we knew we would eventually be together no matter how long it took us to get our lives in order. There was no question, no doubt, just a certainty.

Lee and I supported each other through the funeral and spent the next week together as much as possible. When I sat with him and he wrapped his arms around me, it was though I had found the safest place in the world. And when the day came that he had to leave, I was a bit sad, but not devastated as I had thought I would be. I drove him to the airport and parked out front. He had worn his army uniform to travel in and it was the first time I had seen him in it. As our last moments together for a while approached I realized how proud of his service to our country I was. In the next moment, I marveled that only two short weeks ago, I didn't know Lee and now, I was feeling proud of him and loving him. Now, I knew what Mama and Daddy felt. I knew how it was to KNOW that I'd belong to this man forever.

I drove up to the drop-off point and he got out of the car. I got out and went around to him. For long moments, we just looked at each other, our hearts saying what our words couldn't express. He reached out and touched my face and suddenly I realized that in all our time together, we had never kissed. It just had not seemed necessary. Our mouths had been busy sharing stories, I guess. But, now, there was silence and I knew that I was about the experience the most important kiss of my life. Lee bent forward slightly and I reached my face up to his. I could feel his breath slightly tickling the space just under my nose and we stayed for just a moment, each breathing in the other's exhalations. We were one, we always had been and always would be, and we both savored that knowledge. Then, slowly, Lee lowered his lips to mine and his soft lips pressed into mine. We moved deeper into each other's arms and pressed our bodies against each other, each feeling the other's heartbeat. That brief moment stretched out through infinity in my mind. I could see two souls dancing together, forever connected, moving in and out of future and past lives and I knew it was all true. Then he was gone.

Two weeks later, the letter on the blue paper came. In it Lee broke my heart and at the same time, reassured me. The girlfriend had wanted to talk to him in person because she had gotten pregnant. She wanted him to be there for their child and she knew that if she raised a fuss and went to his commanding officer, she could cause all kinds of trouble for him. He said he was torn. He knew he belonged with me, but he also felt like he needed to be there for his child. I agreed. The hardest thing I ever had to do was tell him that I did not want my soul mate running out on his child. Lee was part of me and that made me love the child, no matter who the mother was. At the end of the letter, Lee wrote something that made the broken heart not so unbearable. He wrote, "I know you know that I love you. But, I want to write it here. Throughout the next few years, read those words. Know that we will be together again and our first kiss is not the last. Trust what we know. Somehow, somewhere we will be together We are one."

Samantha and Mama supported me through my loss for a year or so, but eventually they and the rest of my family said I needed to let go. Everyone encouraged me to date, to get married. I believed they were wrong, but I was afraid that my sadness and loneliness over my separation of Lee affected my ability to think. I knew they all cared about me and decided I should try to do what they asked me to do, that it would be good for me and put their minds at ease. I married the first man to ask me. I knew that if it wasn't Lee I was marrying, then it wasn't going to be right and if it wasn't going to be right, it didn't matter who I married. My new husband was a violent man and I thought that was my fault because somehow he must know about my secret love for Lee. He was jealous of my love for Mama, so eventually, I broke off communication with her and Samantha. By the time I divorced him and was able to contact Mama again, she and Samantha had also moved away. For several years I looked for them, but didn't find them. Lee called me several times throughout those years, but I couldn't go to him because I was married.

Two weeks after my divorce became final, I received an early morning phone call. Half asleep, I spoke with the caller and as I awoke, I realized that it was Lee! He had been keeping tabs on me and knew I was divorced. He had decided that he could no longer live a lie and was coming to get me. "I'll be there to get you in a week," he told me. Have you ever had that feeling of "rightness" when your life has been off track and suddenly, something happens and you can literally feel it shift to the right track? I felt all was right with the world. The week passed quickly and the big day arrived. Lee, however, did not. He didn't call. No letter came. I never found out why he didn't show up.

This time though, I knew that he was determined to be with me and I knew something must have gone terribly wrong to keep him away. I looked for him on the internet and couldn't find any information. I looked for Samantha and Mama found no news. I have been looking for them for almost two years, but 10 days ago, I finally found Samantha, just her address. I quickly sent a letter to her asking how they were and asking for news of Lee. I told her that I have never stopped believing we would be together and I would never again make the mistake of giving up.

CHAPTER 3

Now, here I stand with the letter Samantha sent me a few days ago. Her tears blur some of the words, but they are legible, too legible:

"I don't know how to tell you this. Lee didn't come to you because he had been deployed suddenly and was killed with several other members of his crew during security operations. He isn't coming home ever again. Back then, he said he was going on a short trip and was going to bring back a surprise for us that we would love. That night, though, he got the call and had to be on a plane within hours. He told us not to worry, he'd be back in a few months and he told us that his surprise was that he was going to go bring you home to us, but he'd call you from the base and he knew you'd understand. We didn't know that you guys were going to get married until they sent us his personal effects from his locker and a ring was in it." Samantha went on to apologize for breaking my heart with such awful news and told me to come home. She wanted me to be with the family to handle this sad news and to heal.

But here's the thing, I don't really need to heal. I am sad that he has gone on and I am going home knowing he won't be there, but I don't feel like I have lost Lee. I feel that he's closer to me than ever. He has been appearing in my dreams the last few years and those dreams were different from my regular dreams. I've told several people that it's as if he is really there now. It's like he's visiting. As a matter of fact, I had never dreamt of Lee up until about 16 months ago. It seems he died 17 months ago. Last night, before I got Samantha's letter, Lee told me that I shouldn't worry, no matter what I heard. He said he'd be there and I have to trust in what we know. Once again, he looked into my eyes, touched my face, and told me, "Remember what I told you. It's still true. Trust what we know. Somehow we will be together again. Our first kiss is not the last."