Wow!!!! I appreciate all the sweet and wonderful things you guys have said in your replies!!! :love:
The "Matthew Story" is sort of long, and I feel like I've already taken up enough space on this thread, but if you want more.........
My parents were from Missouri, but they moved to Michigan when I was 4 months old. My grandparents and great grandparents still lived in Mo, so we spent every summer vacation coming to Mo to visit the family. Each Sunday we alternated which church we went to with my grandparents, First Baptist and Holy Cross Episcopal. Matthew's father was the minister of Holy Cross, so we had seen each other our entire lives every summer.
The summer that I was 15, Matt noticed me a little more. I was pretty shy and quiet, and he was really the opposite. My brother and his sister had started hanging out, so he started talking to me more. My mother and his mother were really good friends, too, so all of us kids (he's from a family of 5) would get together and we'd go on picnics, go swimming in their pool, have bonfires in their backyard, etc.
The next summer when I was 16, he had started asking his mother when I would be visiting again. We spent more time hanging out that year. It kept going like that for the next couple summers. I think we first kissed when I was 16-17. He remembers exactly where we were and what we were doing. My brother dared him to kiss me and he dared my brother to kiss his sister.....they had it all planned out so that when we were hanging out, they'd each get to kiss the girls.
When I was 18, we started writing letters to one another and he called me at college. We'd stay up late during our visits making out in their family room while "watching" a video. It was innocent, but it meant a lot to both of us.
Our last conversation was just before I turned 19. That year, his father was transferred to a different church. I had no idea where he was or how to get ahold of him. My phone number and address at college had changed, and he couldn't get ahold of me. That was 1986-87.
Fast forward to 1993. I had moved to Mo. for a teaching job. The English field was saturated in Michigan and I had gotten laid off from a private school. I needed a job and decided to apply in Missouri so I could be close to my only remaining grandmother. I ran into Matt's older sister and invited her to my house for a visit. She came and told me that Matt was living in Illinois and had a serious girlfriend. Then in 1996, her husband died, so I went to the funeral. I hadn't seen her since 93, but my mother (who had moved to Mo, too) and I wanted to go and support her.
I was leaving the service and hadn't seen Matt at the visitation or service yet. As I was walking out, I stopped to talk to someone who I knew, and I heard a voice I recognized to my left. I turned and looked, and there he was. OMGosh.....he looked stunning. In high school he was kind of a bad boy with longish hair. Now he had this GQ cut and his blue eyes and dimples jumped right off his face. He saw me at the exact same time. The smile that crossed his face lit up the room. I'm pretty sure that my smile was close to the same. He came over without ever taking his eyes off of me and gave me this warm embrace. It was so nice!! He asked if I wanted to go and get a cup of coffee (found out later that he doesn't drink coffee....detests it...just wanted to go somewhere with me).
We went and we talked for hours. I was engaged, but we just visited like two old friends.
I'll stop here and post more later.
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