FOR LOVE OF JOE......
I've been thinking a lot about Joe lately. He's been around in spirit all day and actually he weighs heavy on my mind, all the old feelings are cluttering up my heart.
Joe was my love in my last year of high school. He waited a whole year for me to break up with my previous boyfriend. In usual Joe style, I had no idea he was interested in me, he really never gave that away.
He was tall and lanky, the perfect swimmer's body but he wasn't a swimmer. Joe was into golf and track, basketball and very much into love. He was the most romantic and emotionally stable guy I ever dated. He didn't wear his heart out on his sleeve, but you could see it oozing out from behind his eyes every now and again, those eyes were very expressive and golden brown. He always wore Levi's corduroy jeans and Wallabees. Oh, and he liked vests. He was sort of like an old grandfather in dress, must of been the Capricorn Sun. He had thick curly, dirty brown hair and he used to let me cut it for him. He was gentle and sweet and he couldn't wait to be near me. I'd spend hours after school at his house with his family, we were very fond of each other and his mother hoped Joe and I would get married so I could join their tribe. Once I was home and tucked into bed, he'd call and we'd talk into the wee hours of the morning. It was real and it was powerful.
Of course my mother couldn't stand that we were so happy, so she decided to sabotage the relationship, in the only way a Narcissistic, Histrionic, Borderline mother could do. It was sneaky and underhanded and vicious. Joe made the mistake of listening to her rather than listening to me. It was an important matter and the interference was unforgivable. He'd never listened to her before, to this day I wonder what made him hear her. This one incident broke my heart and it broke us apart. It was a cut that ran deep, a tear like no other and it couldn't be healed.
Joe's mother called my mother in distress and in tears. They knew each other from the Garden Club. It was a nightmare. Breaking up with Joe meant breaking up with his family as well, they were all in mourning and reaching out for answers. Joe and I had discussed that I just couldn't get past this deliberate backstabbing on his part, I'd had enough of that in my short life and wasn't about to welcome more of it. At the time, I felt so strongly about this issue that I literally removed Joe from my life, I refused his phone calls and ignored him. No one from school understood it either, they were in shock, Joe and I had been inseparable and now we were done. Our friends were at a loss, they didn't know what to do.
Joe didn't date anyone else for many years and then he met a woman who he dated for nine years. They'd had a daughter in this first year, but didn't technically marry until she was 9 years old. At 39 years old, Joe died in an avalanche in Switzerland, yeah he loved to ski too.. My sister sent me the obituary from the paper, I keep it tucked away in a special, holy place.
Yes, I wonder if his life would've been longer and happier if I hadn't left him. Even though we were just kids, the bond was stronger than any I've ever known. There's always that question: "Did my intense, quick decision somehow cause his early demise?" "How would his life had played out if I'd just dismissed the hurt and let it go?" Of course my Divine studies tell me that all things happen for a reason and I believe this to be true. I still don't feel guilty about it, but he's really hard to ignore in spirit, just as he was in life. I hope having made this mistake was worth it, if indeed it was a mistake. Some days I think it was, some days I don't. Perhaps it was perfectly planned by the Universe, it's that FATE thing again. Joe holds the answer in his heart, he knows all the answers now, as he looks coyly down at his Wallabees and kicks the sand. He remains silent but with that certain smirk which used to drive me wild.
