I love you, she said.
I love you, he whispered.
Yet somehow they knew that would be the last time that they would look at each other that way. They knew it was over. There was nothing left they could do about it though. She was moving off to Wisconsin to attend college and he was staying here. He’d had a job lined up as he was approaching graduation. It was a good job too. Paying decent money. He’d not been interested in stocks or anything like that, but his uncle got him the job. It’d be good money right out of school. Far more than his father had made when he first started out.
She’d been applying to the nursing program the entire past year. They specialized in pediatric cardiac transplants.
They both knew the way they felt and it was far deeper than they had thought it was possible to feel for anyone. It was as deep and vast as the ocean. Tears streamed down both of their cheeks. They thanked the sky every day that they had found each other. They did. Every single day. Yet here they were, about to go their separate ways.
How…
_______________
The love they have, it’s real. It is as real as air in the sky – you could touch it if only you could see a layer deeper.
How then could they let each other go like that?
They didn’t know, yet they did know. Was it that they were not meant to be together? It couldn’t possibly be summed up to something as simple as that, could it? No, it wasn’t that because they were meant to be together. All the time they had spent, it was meant to have happened because it did happen. They felt it too. It was like when they were together, they knew they were exactly where they belonged. Nothing could ever take that away.
Yet the tears in her eyes and the grasp of his arms told another story.
He could ask her to stay. He could ask her to give it all up. Give it all up for him. He could ask.
She might do it, too.
But you see – he loved her. So he couldn’t do that.
I mean, he really loved her.
Somehow his love was so infinite, that he was willing to let her go.
Her happiness was so important to him – and he saw that somehow he was a piece that no longer fit.
————
If we say we believe in “one true love”, how can someone let go of that person? How could you? Because you love them. That’s how. Yet love never gives up, does it? True love lasts forever and ever and ever. Years and years a person will judge a relationship by.
But you see – although they said goodbye. They loved. They loved more. They loved enough to say goodbye. To let that person grow into their own perfect, unique version of themself. Years don’t make love. Nor does holding on so tight. But letting breathe and letting fly is what a real love can do. Real love can breathe and expand and move in all directions.
6 months or 6 years – it didn’t matter. You can fall in love in a second. Fall in love in a year. Time cannot measure feelings.
People said they were too young. Too young to know. Too short a time together. The commitment. The responsibility. The love. But they knew. Maybe they knew more. Before all the should be’s in life wore them down. They knew that to love is to let go when it is time. They knew that time was a construct, the memories are stained in their hearts forever. They knew that.
If life shall find them in the space again together, then so be it. But for now, goodbye and I’ll be seeing you.