ewewish's blog: "Love"

Jimmy

She sat in the rocking chair on the porch. Today was the day that the grand babies would be here. She smiled to herself as she thought the grand babies were no longer babies, and even their babies were starting to have babies of their own.

It was a sunshiny autumn morning with just a little nip in the air but she found that she was pulling the quilted lap robe tighter around her. Her mind drifted back to a time it was her own children she was sitting there waiting for. As her mind drifted back, she thought of the children's father and smiled slightly thinking of how fond she had been of him. He was a good man, and yet no matter how much she tried he wasn't the one she had loved.

She met Jimmy when she was sixteen. He was tall with black hair and big brown eyes and eye lashes that women would have killed for. He caught her eye at the county fair and she remembers him smiling shyly at her. It seemed that wherever she was at the fair, she would look up and catch his eye. She isn't sure what moment it was that she fell in love with him, but she knew it was that night.

She was standing at the booth that had the Ladies Circle's quilts on display when she suddenly felt someone was standing next to her. She looked up and there he was so close she could touch him and she smiled a flirty smile and motioned to the quilts. "They're pretty aren't they." she asked. He smiled, never taking his eyes off her, and said "Beautiful, simply beautiful." She remembers blushing, because she knew he wasn't talking about the quilts.

She turned and started to walk off and he followed her. "My name is Jimmy," He said. "What's your name, Sunshine" She grinned and said "Now how did you know my name?" and they both laughed. Even after she finally told him her name, he always called her Sunshine. She remembers one time asking him why he called Sunshine, and he put his arms around her and said, "Just like Sunshine, You warm my soul." She understood exactly what he meant.

She thought of the rest of that summer and how she spent every moment she could with him. In the fall when it was time to return to school, Jimmy being older started college, she knew that their love could hold them together no matter how many miles apart they were. He would come home on weekends to spend them with her, and although her parents cautioned her about spending so much time with him, he was like a drug that she was addicted to. Every day
her love for him grew and she knew in her heart that he loved her too.

Some weekends when he came home, he would bring his best friend John with him. She liked John, he was funny and made her laugh. He also gave them time to spend together without him, never trying to butt in and as that school year flew by, she realized that John was just as much her best friend as he was Jimmy's. He use to tease her about stealing her away from Jimmy, but they both knew her heart belonged to him.

As springtime came, Jimmy asked her to be his wife and she knew that she would never love anyone as much as she loved him. Her parents would never have allowed her to marry before graduating high school so instead of an engagement ring her gave her a cameo locket and inside was a picture of him. She wore that necklace everyday and almost wore the picture out by opening it up and rubbing it. She felt so close to him when he wasn't there.
She thinks back to that Friday night that changed her life. She had sat on her parents porch waiting for him as the rain poured down. During the evening, her mama had brought her a blanket and a cup tea. She had tried to get her to come indoors but she just knew Jimmy would be there soon. As the storm raged, her thoughts were of Jimmy and how he must have been slowed down by the weather. At some point in time, she fell asleep. She remembers being
woke up by something, and to this day she believes it was Jimmy calling her, but when she sat up and looked around it was early daylight and Jimmy hadn't come.

When she walked into the house, daddy was already up and coffee was made. He took one look at her face and said "Sit down and I'll get you some coffee. When it gets a little later we will call Jimmy's parents and find out what is going on." He placed his hand on her shoulder and said "Don't worry darling, the weather probably just slowed him down and by the time he got to his parents he probably thought it was to late to call."

She was sitting there drinking coffee when she heard a car pull in the yard. She ran to the door, relieved Jimmy had finally come. But when she got to the door, it wasn't Jimmy, it was John. She started to run too him, and as he stood at the side of the car with tears running down his face, she just knew that Jimmy was never going to come. She collapsed on the ground, crying when John picked her up into his arms, he told her how Jimmy was determined to get to her and the roads were flooding, and he must not have seen the bridge had been taken out. John just stood there and held her close and cried with her.

She doesn't remember much of the next few months. There is a slight memory of Jimmy's funeral but otherwise everything else seemed in a fog. She does remember that John was always around. He would try to make her smile and as days went by, she started to get back
into the routine of life. John had now become a big part of her life and was always there to lift her up when she was down. One day he asked her to marry him. He told her that he had always been in love with her, and that although Jimmy had been his best friend, he knew that Jimmy wouldn't want her to be alone. She told him no, and many times after that told him no, he pursued her for the next few months as he kept proclaiming his love for her. One day, finally at wit's end, she cried "How can I marry you? I will always love Jimmy." John's eyes filled with tears as he looked at her, "You will never know if you will ever love anyone else, if you hold onto the past. I love you enough for both of us and I am willing to marry you just with the hope that someday you will love me."

She remembers the day that she finally told him she would marry him. She doubted that she would ever love anyone like Jimmy but she needed to move on with her life, and what better way to do it than marry her best friend. She knows that John did everything in his power to make her love him, and although she was very fond of him, she never could get that feeling she had had with Jimmy. She knew he was aware of the nights that she would get up and set on the porch crying. He never mentioned it in the morning.

Years went by, and babies were born, and she smiles now when she thinks back to all those years. Dear John, was a good man and a good father. Yet when on his deathbed fifty years after they got married, he held her hand and said I will save a place for you in Heaven. She remembers that she smiled and leaned over and kissed his forehead, and prayed that she would be forgiven as it was Jimmy's side that she wanted to walk next to in Heaven.

She wonders now how she could have been so unfair John. He had given her so much and yet she held back the one thing that he wanted most, her love. She realizes that its to late to make up to him for not loving him and yet even then she wonders how she could have done things differently. She probably shouldn't have married him and allowed him to find someone that would love him as much as he deserved to be love. As she sat there rubbing her chest, she thought of how much she had cheated John and herself out of.

When the grandchildren arrived a couple hours later, there she was in her rocker. Her eyes closed and she had passed from this world holding a cameo locket with a faded picture in it. Her granddaughter turned to her brother tears overflowing down her face as she said, "I wonder if she found Jimmy."