As a young boy I felt a feeling I was not familiar with. As a man I now know it was love. At the time it confused me. I may have thought it was just the hormones running wild like they do in young boys. But it was strange, it was more than that. I was jealous of her friends, I was jealous of her family. Jealous because I was not with her. I dreamed of how we would walk together, go to the movies, and hang out. I was still too young to think of family or marriage. She was my childhood love, the first. She was all I could think of. At the time every love song seemed to be about her. Can a grade school boy have passion toward a girl? We have passion toward toys, playing, but a girl. Wow I had passion for a girl....I had true love.

I wanted to tell her my feelings, but to my surprise she dated my best friend. I felt sheer terror at seeing them holding hands and walking in the hallways next to one another. I tried to move on, date other girls, some where her friends so I could be closer to her. As we grew up she became a good friend, much to my delight. She would call me and talk about her friends and her 'boyfriend'. I would just listen, wishing I could get up the courage to tell her how I felt about her. But what if I did and she ran away forever. So I simply kept the feelings under cover. I enjoyed every day of getting to see her.

Jr. High School was a time of great heart ache. She moved out of state. I knew I lost my chance at possible love forever. We would write letters but she had her life in a new state, new school, and new friends. I dated other girls through high school but I finally got in touch with her again. I was over joyed. Maybe I had a chance again to tell her my love, passion, how I long for her touch, embrace. Finally I heard the words of an angel, the words that ignited my love even more then before when she said the loved me. She just didn’t see it before. I was the acorn that grew to a strong great tree. Not a flower that bloomed, I am still a man here. She always saw my kindness and tenderness toward here but as young kids she didn’t understand it any more than I did.

Our last year in high school was of joy and relief. I fly up to her prom. A stranger in a strange land, I didn't speak the language or understand their customs but I try to blend in. I wore strange clothes to her prom, I felt so out of place yet I would walk to the ends of the earth for her, so I endured. She flew down to my prom. She fit in better than I did at hers. She wore the most red dress every created. It was made for her, for this very moment. She was the envy of everyone, she turned heads. I was proud to have her on my arm. I didn’t show her off like an object. I displayed her like the angel she truly was. Finally I was not the jealous one in the room. I had my angel and I was going to do everything in Heaven to keep her. That night after the prom, we drove out onto a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere. I stopped the vehicle and turned up the radio. I walked around to her door and opened it. She took my hand and we walked to the front where the headlights shined. We danced. I don’t remember the song. There may not have been a song playing but I heard music. I heard music I could never explain. Music that our hearts seem to be creating.

I proposed to her in front of my family. It wasn't the fanciest or most romantic. There was not a beautiful lake or big moon in the back drop. I didn’t ride up on a horse dressed in metal like a Shining knight. I was myself. Humble to be in her presence, I knelt on one knee, took her hand. I looked in her beautiful eyes, eyes I could see myself looking at forever. The words flowed out of my mouth like sweet wine; will you make me the luckiest man in the world? Will you marry me? I could hear the angels in heaven holding their breaths, just waiting for her answer. It seemed like years for her to answer. The worlds seem to slow down to a crawl. Tears begin to flow from your eyes, were these tears of joy or no. 'YES, I will!' The sweetest words ever spoken in the history of mankind. I hugged her and said let's start our new life together.

The wedding was one grand in the eyes of God. It was simple in ours though. I am ashamed that she didn't get the wedding of her dreams. But she was the most the gorgeous bride to have ever graced the earth. She moved with such heavenly light that she brightened the room. When she was put her hand in my and I looked into those eyes, we had the wedding that dreams were made of. The very words we spoke created the bond of our hearts. The words I do were our keys to each other's heart. The door to everlasting love was opened and we entered for all eternity.

Twenty one years later, two children, several individuals saying we will never last, military life, deployments, hardships, deaths, births, crying, loving....we are still together. I am on the other side of the world right now. I answer my nations call but I miss my angel, miss her touch, miss your words, miss her embrace, most of all I miss her eyes. Those beautiful eyes, they have a love story of their own. One that started out not as a love story but as a friend story, one that developed into a love story still in the making.