SOULMATES 34 years and recounting.

Here are the prompts for this week’s Writer’s Workshop: 

1.  Write a post based on the word soulmates. 
2. Write a post in exactly 8 sentences. 
3. Post photos of your Halloween costume or your (grand)child(ren)’s costume(s). 
4. Make a list of things you have planned for November. 
5. List the top ten songs that you never want to hear again, and why. 
6. Write an essay entitled “Giving a child an unusual name is a bad idea.”

I chose #1. I decided to write an Acrostic essay about my soulmate and best friend who is also my wife of 65 years.  (We've only completed 26 so far.)

Suited to one another? I met Amy in the fall of 1990. I was 25 and she was 21.  I was returning to the WIU campus after having to take the semester off for academic reasons.  She had just graduated from Northern Illinois University that Spring and was starting graduate school in Macomb. 

Our paths meet. She decided to go to the year's first large-group meeting of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship which met on the 2nd floor of the student union.  I believe the meeting was held in the Fox Room.  A majority of our meetings were held in that particular room.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, our meeting at the Fox Room (if it was the Fox Room), was not the first time Amy encountered me.  She had gotten to the Student Union early that night and was studying at the Hardees when she spotted me waiting in line to order. She thought to herself, self, that the guy in the ball cap stroking his chin and pondering what type of Hardee’s  fare he will consume tonight is just the kind of guy who is likely to be at this meeting tonight.

Lisle, Illinois is where Amy said she was from when I introduced myself to her at the I-V meeting.  It turned out her hunch was right I was one of the students on the exec committee for our chapter and introduced myself to all the newcomers that night.  It also turned out that Lisle was where my grandparents lived.

Many things in common. Besides Lisle, it turned out that Amy and I shared quite a few similarities.  We were both from families with 5 children.  Our fathers were both the oldest of 7 children.  We were both raised Catholic and we both became disillusioned with that faith when our Parish priests came into our Parochial schools in 7th grade to tell us that not all of the Bible was true.

A Friendship quickly blossomed. We were inseparable.  Because I did not have a car at school and because we lived in suburbs near each other we drove back to the Chicago area on holidays and vacations.  We both enjoyed watching and playing sports and so many other things.  Whether at school or back at home we spent most of our free time together.

Time Passed as it always does.  She was the closest friend I ever had.  But life outside of university beckoned us both and we began to make our way in the wide world.  We talked on the phone,  exchanged letters and tapes over the years,  and spent as much time together when we were in the same time zone. Many people began to realize that there was something between us beyond friendship.  If there was we were oblivious to that notion.  

Eventually, we realized what others had already figured out.  We loved each other, and one night in February of 1997 on AOL of all things, I got the memo that the Godly wife I had almost given up on finding was the same person who had sized me up at Hardees all those years before,

Soulmates? Certainly, but the best kind. Best friends who fell in love and never stopped being best friends.

Thanks to John Holton for hosting the Writers Workshop at The Sound of One Hand Typing.