I was 14 years old and just got my working papers. I was allowed to work 6 hours a day for the city of New York for the Summer.
My assignment was a methodist church who had a program for low income families, kids under 14 years of age would be eligible to participate into the Summer program. I would accompany an adult with a group of 20 to various historical sites, museums, central park zoo ect.
My first day on the job I met the Reverend, his wife and his brother David. I looked at him, he looked at me and that was all, no words, no signs; he shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
By the middle of the Summer we could not look at each other even. I was 14 he was 16.
Two weeks before the program was over the trip to the Botanical Gardens, Bronx, NY was a day to remember.
I was facinated with all the flower beds and horticulture. I just kept wondering and not paying attention, I stumbled! A hand steadied me by grabbing my arm in that moment it felt like an electrical shock surging through my body. I turned, and looked in the green eyes of David. We looked at each other until someone called our names, he grabbed my hand and pulled me along the electricity was still pulsing. How I got through that day is still a fog, all I could think of was the new feelings my young innocent body had been evoked to.
The next day David, was knocking on my door. My mom questioned, asked, but all she got out of David was ” I’m here to escort Solitaire…” This continued for the next two weeks. Lots of holding hands and electric shocks but hardly any talking.
On our last day of the Summer Program we were supposed to have a picnic with all the kids, staff, volunteers and the Reverend and his wife. But that day never went as planned!
The Reverend found his wife dead on the floor with an brain eneurysm. It was a double loss, she was 9 months pregnant due to have the baby any day. After the pain, the loss and the funeral, the Reverend requested a transfer and they were gone. I never knew what happened to both of them. You see I was part of a sweet and sad time, to some there is no separation.
The saddest of all, I never felt those feelings again, romantic, enchanting, and electrifying touches. I compared many a relationship to that one and that was my downful. Love should not be a comparison but a moment to be enjoyed for it is fleeting.
.
Beautiful and sad! Never met him again?
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Really a great story
Sad but true
But that’s how the first one should be never to be felt again
Yes the rest in comparison will never be
And you chase for the rest of your life
Again sad but true
It one of the untold mysteries and secrets to the quiet storm
As always Sheldon
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Great story!!!
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How sweet and memorable!
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Beautiful and so romantic. Could you find him by Internet – do you wish to ?
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I was 14, by the time I really started to find he was far away and gone. Not meant to be.
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What a wistful story, quite sad.
Hugs xxx
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Great story and so private. It would hurt to remember the love that was never to be realized. Thanks for sharing.
Jean
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How beautiful and tragic…in so many ways. Beautiful because a young girl’s first realization of that wonderful electric ZINNNGGG between herself and another boy is always so memorable and to be treasured forever.
And so tragic first of all because of that horrible loss of David’s mother and his unborn sibling and how that must have devastated him and his father.
Tragic second of all because you and David never got a chance to even say a brief good-bye.
But tragic most of all, at least to me, because you spent so much fruitless time and energy trying to recapture those first wonderful electric charges of mutual attraction by hoping that the other boys/men in your life could re-play that for you and recreate those feelings for you.
At least you have finally realized that yes, that was not good, and kudos to you for now understanding that. That first realization in a young girl that she is attractive to somebody that she is attracted to, that her body and her heart is telling her through those zingy electric charges and the thumpity thumpity thumpity of your heart that first love is right around the corner and hopefully it will be as doubly wonderful as we (your heart and your body) think it will be, is the most magical time!
It is when your body and your heart are just blossoming, just awakening and it is also what you can never truly experience again because the first time for everything is always the most magical and memorable and can never be recreated.
But that does not mean that other special, wonderful, happy feelings will never occur, they will, trust me, they will! 😀
Sorry for such a long post 😦
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Thank you for the wonderful words of support. Yes you have summed my love life up. Regards, Solitaire.
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You will find love again, sweetie, because you have a good, good heart. Happy Thanksgiving to you and to yours 🙂
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Aww, that was so sweet, but in time, it was a sad tragic too:)
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Sad – but I had to learn that each love we are blessed to have in this life is unique and cannot be compared to another because they are so unique –
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Thank you for your words.
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Might I add to what I know must be a sad memory by saying the Bronx botanical gardens is beautiful?
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Yes!
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From “Barry” Chapter One, Part XXII:
“I don’t know, but it’s more fun with boys and girls than just girls, isn’t it,” I begged.
“It changes the conversation entirely,” Melissa quipped.
“But it doesn’t have to,” I said, thinking a mile-a-minute.
“But we were talking about boys,” Lisa said.
“So keep talking about boys. I know about boys,” I said, knowing they would never be brave enough to bring up sex anyway. Among the boys there was a culture of mutually accepted lies that ranged from tepid to kinky via imagination…but how could you fool a tent full of girls?
“Then why is it that all boys want from girls is to have sex?” Sue asked.
I know I turned red all over, but I also know this was a defining moment in my chances to date or never date Lisa.
“I think it depends on the boy. Some guys really love their girlfriends, and not just for the sex either.”
“Oh?” Sue said. “I think they say they are in love just to get sex.”
“Yeah maybe, but then what? The girls have sex and later find out whether the guy is really in love or not? Or the girl can say ‘No, let’s wait’ to test the guy, risking he may run off. I mean I have no idea what girls think, but people end up sleeping together, even if there are different reasons why. As long as no one gets pregnant, I figure sex is fun for boys and girls.” Ah, I was in full swing now. Those early days of proselytizing “Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex, But were Afraid To Ask,” off the balcony of my room paid off, and I didn’t have to lie! Yet, at the time…:
(I so wanted this to be my final statement on the subject.)
Lisa: “But you said you had sex with Jeanne, but it wasn’t true!”
Me: “My God I’m the bad guy. I already apologized to Jeanne.”
Melissa: “That’s not the point, the point is, why are boys so hung up on sex?”
Me: “And girls aren’t hot to trot? What were you talking about before we showed up?”
Melissa: “I was talking about Todd, not sex, or sex with Todd, but just Todd, you sex maniac.”
Me: “So who do you like Sue?”
Sue: “Well I can’t decide. I think one of them will ask me out soon.”
Me: “How can you be so sure?
Sue: “I have my ways?”
Me: “See, it’s these ‘ways’ you talk about , this is what boys like me are interested in.
Melissa: “The girls way is to get into the guy’s eyesight in as many different situations as possible.”
Lisa: “Well, it’s the way you present yourself to a guy. It’s not just repetition, because a first impression can seal the deal.”
Me: “How many times has a seductive approach worked for you, or any of us though?”
Sue: “Boys are too shy, and you coujld walk up to them and hit them over the head with the frying pan of love, and they’d still miss it.”
The girls laughed.
Me: “But what is the goal? Dating? Marriage? A Fling? Someone to hang out with? To go steady? I mean it’s confusing. I think guys are less confusing, and take life as it comes.”
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How incredibly sad and yet so romantic. Have you ever tried to find him through Facebook or the like?
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No, I did not know full name.
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Ah well, it will just be a romantic mystery for you to remember with a glisten in your eye.
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