today has been a bittersweet day for me. fifteen years ago today was the first time marc said, "i love you." we'd been dating for about two months and things were going swimmingly. i knew it would happen at some point, but the day he chose to say it caught me by surprise. fittingly, the reason he chose this day to tell me sort of set the tone for our relationship: not romantic, not spontaneous, not swept away by emotion and feeling, but instead solid and supportive and genuine.
he chose to tell me those three little words on this day fifteen years ago because on this day fifteen years ago, i heard three other words that stopped my heart:
"kevin passed away."
kevin was one of my best friends, and had been since junior high. when i moved to indiana, it was the end of fourth grade, and making friends in this small community was not easy. they had all been together since kindergarten and didn't take kindly to outsiders. things improved over the summer, as i had girls in the neighborhood with whom i started to hang out and we became friends. once fifth grade started, i was one of them and all was okay. and it was time to decide who i would like. that is a very important decision in fifth grade, when the girls and the boys begin to notice each other and pair up.
a tall boy with dark hair and even darker eyes caught my eye. kevin. he was always nice to me, always polite. my crush was immediate, but i still wasn't comfortable enough in my new surroundings and with my new friends to say anything. so i didn't.
but then sixth grade came, and he played basketball and i became a cheerleader in order to maintain friendships with the girls in my class. (seriously ... me? as a cheerleader? it had to be for a reason bigger than pom poms.) toward the end of the year, kevin approached me at someone's birthday party and we started to talk. about all the stuff that's important to 12-year-olds. and at one point he said, "when i grow up, my kids are gonna be swimmers." and i knew i was in sixth grade love.
a few weeks later, my best friend, alison, had a going-away party at her house. her family was moving to south carolina that summer, and she wanted to say goodbye to all her friends. as darkness came and we all spread out across the yard to play a version of tag, kevin came toward me and motioned toward the shed in our neighbors' yard. standing there in the dark, he said, "i know you like me." i think i might have said, "umma wha ... yeah ..." then kevin gave me the sweetest kiss - my first - and said, "okay. maybe we should go together."
bliss!! a summer of bliss!!
and then junior high came and it all ended. but somehow we were unfazed and unaffected by that summer, because we stayed friends and even became closer. by high school, he was one of the people to whom i was closest and could talk about anything. we even tried to date again, but it was a disaster. (think: pizza that never came, flat tire, late for a movie, running across a muddy field to reach the theater because of the flat tire, returning to the car to find it covered in silly string, driving 30 mph back to my house on a donut wheel, and then awkward conversation for 20 minutes with my mom, who adored kevin, when all the while kevin just wanted to get home and fix his car.) we realized the universe was trying to tell us to not mess with what obviously worked.
after graduation, kevin went to purdue and we dropped out of contact for the year. then that spring i bumped into him at a local store. we talked for awhile at the store, then i invited him back to my dorm to keep talking. he stayed for a couple of hours, we talked about everything - my boyfriend, his girlfriend, i told him i had written about our disastrous date for a comp class and got an A ... he told me he wanted to read it and i promised to mail it. then he left, but before he did we made plans to hang out over the summer.
and that was it. a month later, he was gone.
i was at church on sunday morning, may 23rd, when the pastor announced that another local church was asking for prayers for one of their members who was involved in a car accident overnight. as soon as the pastor said the name of the church, i thought, "kevin." i knew his family attended there. during the prayer, the pastor again mentioned the church and then said kevin's name. i sat numb through the remainder of the service and couldn't wait to bolt and run home to call the hospital to check on his status and see if i could go visit. and the only thing going through my mind was the fact that i'd accidentally opened an umbrella in the house that morning. that fact haunted me for some reason.
marc and i drove to my parents' house immediately following church. he knew kevin was a good friend, so he understood why i was so freaked out. as soon as i walked in the house, i told my mom kevin had been in an accident and i needed to call the hospital to see how he was doing. my mom turned white.
i called parkview and asked if i could get patient information. i said kevin's name and the nurse put me on hold to look it up. she returned to say they didn't have a patient there by that name. i told her that i had just heard at church that he was there. she paused, then asked if i was family or friend. i told her, "great friend," and she paused again. then she said,
"kevin passed away. at 9:30 this morning."
just as the pastor was asking for prayers.
i hung up, walked into the kitchen, told my mom, and fell to the floor in tears.
the rest of the day is a blur. we drove to ohio for my cousin's graduation party, marc stood by me and tried to be supportive, but he truly wasn't sure what to do. he'd never experienced anything like that before. that evening, after returning, i drove marc back to his parents' house. i had met his parents once, maybe twice before this day, so it was all still very new. but when i went inside with marc, his parents asked, innocently, if i knew the boy who was killed that morning. all i could say was yes. and then said that i had to go.
marc walked me out to the car. he was very quiet. and he told me to drive carefully. then he hugged me, kissed the top of my head, and said, "i love you."
i can't even remember if i said it back. there were no bells. no birds singing. no butterflies in my stomach. just gratefulness that he was there for me, and that he cared, and that he stood by me all day - the worst day of my life - and did his best to help, though he was completely unprepared.
the course of our relationship has been just more of the same. i hope, at some point, that there IS a big, sweeping, romantic moment. but i wouldn't trade the years of quiet love for one minute of the passionate, romantic kind. because the quiet kind is what gets you through all the good and the bad and the unimaginable.
so today i'm thinking about my two boys, both completely different, but they would have really liked each other had they met. and it breaks my heart that they never will.
