[A love-themed re-post that finishes this story I began this morning.]
Caught in the crosshairs o’ love, Bow Tie o’ the Day waited patiently to read Part 2 of our little tale. When we left our saga o’ love in the previous post, this is where we were: Suzanne and I had decided to quit being we/us. And, as I have admitted, it was all because I was a dope. My bad.
Fast forward to the year 2000, when I moved back to Delta from the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area. Between my freshly diagnosed bipolarity and my freshly flaming Hanky Panky (pancreas), I was not well. I seriously expected to die soon. I was drained of health and hope. I needed to choose a power of attorney (POA) to handle my finances and medical decisions if I couldn’t deal with them myself. I pondered about who knew me best in the world. I pondered about who I trusted most in the world. And even though I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in over a decade, Suzanne was the answer.
I had no idea where Suzanne even was. I searched. Was she still in Utah? Did she move to England? It was almost Christmas so I decided to try to contact her by sending her a Christmas card, in care of her parents— hoping they still lived where last I knew them. A couple of days later, Suzanne replied to my card by telephoning me from her house in Ogden. I was glad her parents still lived at their same address and that they actually gave her the card. And I was gladder that she still lived in Utah. And I was gladdest of all that our phone conversation wasn’t one bit awkward.
I drove my 1970 Ford Falcon from Delta to Ogden a few days after that phone conversation, to meet Suzanne for dinner and a chat about my need for a Power of Attorney. We went to her fave Italian place on 25th Street, where I ate halibut and explained exactly what I needed her to do and why. That dinner changed the course of our lives. Everything since that dinner has been nothing less than a wondrous second chance. From the moment we sat down in the restaurant, we talked easily, laughed far too loudly, and couldn’t quit smiling at each other. It was as if the years we lived through without each other had never happened at all—like we had never been apart. Love at second sight. The decade-long homesickness for something I could never quite pin down made its exit. We were where we belonged. We were home at last.