MistyLynn Elkins

Third Lifetime

It was thirty years and another life when I saw those eyes again. My fiancée at the time had met this “really cool guy” at work and for weeks insisted that I come meet this fellow. I finally relented and let him drag me up to the shop to meet this guy that my fiancée had put on such a pedestal. I stepped into the shop and stopped cold in my tracks. I could feel him. I knew who it was even before I walked across the shop to the table in the back. I tried to turn around and leave but my fiancée was holding my hand and pulled me toward what I knew was the moment when everything changed. I finally shuffled my way back and moved around the last case and my eyes fell into his. Hazel eyes with a gold ring around the iris, I knew those eyes. The face was older but I knew it was him, even before he spoke.

I knew him but I didn’t think he knew me. I was a different person, a different face a different voice. I figured it was safe enough to sit and talk with him. I knew he would not remember that night, nor would he remember me in the shape I had. That was the beginning of it all. Or I should say the restart of an old love affair…

But of course that is a story for another time, one when I am able to tell or our present and our future. This is the time for remembrance. And that is the memory of when I first met the man who had been and would be my greatest love.

--------------------December 01, 2009------------------------------

So much time and so many things have come to pass since I first set those words to paper. I suppose the best thing to do is pick back up where I left off.

That first day in the shop we spoke little but our eyes met more than I found comfortable. My heart leapt with each meeting of our gazes. It was the beginning of a fast friendship and it was not long before I was spending more and more time with him. When I started working at the shop he would come up and spend the evenings with me. Keeping me company while I closed up and waiting for traffic to die down before he headed back to his home. In those months we became closer and closer friends. I learned about may of the things that had happened to him in his life. It seems that each day we grew closer. There were touches and kisses exchanged over this time and thought I tried to entice him to do other things he refused. Our friendship grew to a point that was more than friends but not quite lovers.

I never had the courage in those days to tell him about that night so very long ago.

A few months later it was decided that a few of us would get together and take a trip to a grand gathering. The four of us, him, me, my fiancée, and one of our dear friends, departed from the shop on a Tuesday night. Little did I know this trip would change all of our lives forever.

Through the trip there was an easy camaraderie between the four of us. One of us drove, while another played navigator and the other two spent time resting in the back of the van. There were a few moments when things got hairy but that was more due to poor driving than any animosity between any of the party members.

When we arrived at the home of my brother things were still easy and light. My fiancée and I went upstairs to sleep but for some reason even in my exhaustion I found it difficult to sleep. I could feel him downstairs and it was eating at me.

The following day we decided to go exploring. For any of you that have been the only female in the vehicle with multiple men you can understand the frustration of trying to get them to decide on anything. So after getting some breakfast we headed down the highway. I was not sure where we were going but I felt pulled to the other side of town. It was there that I saw the sign for our destination. Of course the guys were fine with the decision and off we went for a history lesson.

We arrived at our destination and got our gear together and started walking. He decided that we would say a prayer at some point in the hike and started looking for a place to conduct the ceremony. While we walked he took the opportunity to read the stories etched in the walls of the valley and also to teach my fiancée some of the old ways. Once again I felt this pull to keep moving forward. There was something just ahead that I needed to see.

After being called back by our friend repeatedly I finally made it to the place where I was being pulled. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least. I felt as if I had walked into a wall of pain. Every muscle in my body began to hurt. At that point our friend called me back yet again and I returned to the clearing that he was considering for the prayer. I told him flat out that it was the wrong place and after he looked at me like I had lost my mind he indulged me and let me guide him to the crest of the hill where I had had my episode. I stood behind him, placed my hands on his shoulders and rested my head against his back as I guided him to the hill. At the crest of the hill I stopped and pointed to the bottom where he was to say the prayer then stopped to kneel on the side of the path. I could go no farther, the pain was too great. Our friend stayed with me as he and my fiancée went down the hill to say the prayer. In the process of the prayer they discovered an ancient visage that shocked us all. As soon as they turned and saw the great warrior the pain lifted and I was able to join them at the bottom of the hill. I will never forget looking up to the side of the hill and seeing the great warrior watching over us.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, we climbed and read the stories and at the end of the day we returned to my brother’s house. On the way back to the house I began to get a terrible headache so when we got home I kissed my brother on the cheek, took some medicine and curled up on the bed in the office downstairs.

I remember my brother checking in on me before he went to bed, I also remember our friend checking in on me before he went to bed. Heck even my brothers girlfriend and her brother checked in on me before bed. My fiancée on the other hand did not. He went up to bed after having a couple of drinks and didn’t say a word to me.

It was sometime after midnight when he came in to check on me. He knocked gently at the door and as soon as I heard it I knew it was him. I asked him to come in and sit with me for a while. As soon as his hand touched mine my heart began to race. I sat up and curled into his arms. While I was resting I had been having nightmares, and I simply sought comfort from someone I trusted. As I leaned against him he felt my heart race and stood to leave. It was at this moment that I knew that if he walked out of that room that I would never see him again. My heart stopped and my breath caught. I gasped and according to him made the most pitiful sound he had ever heard and in the pitch black night reached out and grabbed his hand.

That was our first night together. We spent much of it talking, exploring each other and admitting our feelings for each other. It is a night I will never forget.

The rest of the week was spent with days out at the gathering, evenings spending time with our friends and late nights spent in each others arms. I never did sleep back upstairs with my fiancée. Sadly my fiancée was clueless as to what was going on right under his nose. At least I assume he was because he never said anything to either of us about it.

The drive home was the longest two days of my life. What would happen now that we were returning to our normal lives? Would he go back to his home and his wife, would it all just be a memory. I wept silently when we dropped him off at his house.

A few days later was my daughters birthday party. He and his wife arrived separately, he and I had spoken since our return but we had not seen each other and it was one of the most painful weeks of my life. Everyone had a good time at the party. Well everyone but his wife. At one point she and he got into an argument and she left with his daughter. He was so angry that I convinced him that it would be better for him to stay with my fiancée and I than to go home to an ongoing fight.

It was that night that we realized that we not only wanted to be together but we needed to be together. He never stayed another night in that other house again.

The next week seems like a blur. I admitted to my fiancée that I was no longer in love with him, and in fact admitted that I had not been in love with him for a very very long time. He confronted my fiancée and sent him packing with a plane ticket. That is when we began our life together, yet again.

The next seven years seem like a blur. We were married two years after that trip. The following year he injured himself and his health began to deteriorate. We worked to raise out daughters and give them a safe and happy home. Each night I spent curled up in his arms and knew safety and peace.

Our life was not an easy one. His divorce was difficult and the trauma his daughter had seen at her mothers hand created a number of challenges for us. But we faced each challenge as it came and did the best we could. His health deteriorated to the point he retired from the job he loved so much and we spend each and every day together. We started a small business, and lived as best we could. Always voicing and showing our love for each other.

When things reached their apex we decided that it was time to move home and so we began to make plans. That is when disaster struck. After what seems to be a normal day he ended up at the emergency room. Three days after he was admitted his life ended. His heart gave up and he was gone. That day part of me died as well. We had been so much a part of each other, spending hours just talking and being together that it was like my own soul had been ripped from my body.

Now I sit here many months later and there is still a gaping hole, and a constant pain. I miss him each and every day. I am learning to live again, spending time with dear friends who are helping me to see that there is life beyond the tears.