five minute friday: cherish

 

Cherish. He tells me its his favorite song.

I’m looking back through the window of time. It’s our first date. We’re on our way to the Waterfall in Ann Arbor after the Philadelphia Orchestra’s concert. The tables are full, so we sit with another couple that we don’t know. When D tells them he sells birth control products, the other guy comments, “Oh, that must be handy.” D is annoyed with him.

I think he’s rich. After all, his parents traveled on a ship to Europe to bring back a Mercedes. So I order a shrimp salad. He orders something cheap.

We slow dance, and as the song ends, he presses me closer to his chest, heart to heart, for the whisper of a second. I feel my heart skip. He still does this, press me close for the barest beat when the music stops.

It’s at the Waterfall where he places the engagement ring on my finger barely two months later. The same ring, along with its wedding band mate, that mysteriously disappears on our tenth anniversary, on the day of, somewhere in John Pennekamp State Park in the Florida Keys. I hid the soldered set in the glove compartment–so I thought–before we went snorkeling. We tore that car apart several times before we sold it, but never found the rings. I’ve heard stories of things turning up years later. Maybe one day…?

I cherished that ring–those rings. I have a new set now. But I don’t cherish them as much. I do cherish this relationship that’s lasted over 41 years through better and worse, through sickness and health. These days, I see moments through smudged and broken panes of time. So now I cherish the now.

And my heart still skips.

In the stillness,

Sandy

Writing wild and free with Lisa Jo and the Five Minute Friday Community.