remember

of course i can remember the very first time i saw you; not too difficult there, eh? but besides you, there are two women that i can remember the very first time i saw them.

the first was SH, when i was 17. my 6th hour was over and i was sitting on a desk talking to the teacher. from the second she walked into the room she had my attention. short, blonde, petite, stylish, classy, with an easy laugh. a few years older than me, she was a former student of his too, and she had stopped by to say hi. then a few weeks later i was petting a cat that had wandered into my yard, and she strolled up to claim it. we talked awhile. so we were neighbors. she lived a couple of trailers down, and then later moved into the trailer right next to mine. during the summer, i would come home from work around ten o'clock and i'd stop by her trailer and we'd stay up talking til midnight. she always had ideas for fun stuff to do. we went to concerts at a small theatre near one of the universities, or to a laser light show at the planetarium. on a whim we went skinny dipping once at the sand-washing pond by the cement factory, which was a damn sight better than the leafy pool we swam in another time. we'd grill steaks, or go to movies, or just sit around and bs. every new year's eve she'd throw a party and that's where i would be. it was as one of those parties was winding down, and it was just she and i, that my thoughts began to drift and my gaze became far away. she noticed, and tendered the question "thinking about where you'd rather be?" i met her eyes briefly, but couldn't hold it. i looked down and replied "no, there's no place i'd rather be." and that was as close as i could come to telling her that i loved her. the years continued on, as did our story, but in the end we drifted apart.

the other was NT. i had stopped into the office between service calls to check messages. she came in to pay a bill, and i had to fight to keep from staring. she was pregnant with her first son at the time, but even so she was irresistably attractive. dark, tan and fit. through the years, i'd sometimes see her pushing a stroller as her older son walked ahead. i never saw her with her husband. always raising the boys. their little house was on a corner,and i would pass by it on my way home from work. the kitchen window faced the street, and sometimes as i drove by i would catch a glimpse of her doing dishes at the sink. she became friends with my wife, and we'd see her about once a week. they took the kids on trips to the zoo, in our car because hers was too small. when we bought a really crappy old used car, she remarked upbeat, "this looks like a zoo car to me!" then she got breast cancer, but caught it early. then it came back, and required a radical mastectomy. finally it got bad enough that they tried experimental stem cell treatments. somewhere along the way, my regard for her changed from a simple secret coveting-thy-neighbor's wife into a true concern for her as a human being. i began a ritual of saying a prayer for her every time i passed by her house. i prayed that she would be healed from the cancer, that she would make a full recovery, that she would live to finish raising her boys and see them marry. i prayed it every day on the way to work, and every night on the way back home. until one day a voice inside me said "Don't pray for that anymore." i was shocked at the contrariness of such a thought. it didn't occur to me to find out what i should pray for. i just stopped. a few months later she lost the battle and died. with her died a piece of my reason for existing. i never told her, or anyone else, that i ever carried a torch for her. i'm sure that i was never important to her, but she was surely important to me.

the words i never said have haunted me, so i hope you will forgive me for saying the words you didn't want to hear, or wanted to hear from someone else, not from me.

i remember the first time i saw you.
you are special to me.
you are important to me.
i love you.