My Love Story
How I met my husband despite my programming.
My husband (Jeff) and I grew up in the same town and attended the same schools from the time he was in 3rd grade. When he was in 10th grade in High School I was still in 8th grade in Junior High. Jeff drove a friend of his (Norm) to see me now that they both attended High School. Jeff thought I was too young but I thought he was perfect! I ran across the schoolyard to watch as his ‘57 chevy drove out of the parking area, down the street, stopped at the light and then finally turned and drove off out of view.
I didn’t see him again until the fall of my 1st year of High School. He was starting his senior year. I recognized him and we would pass each other in the morning. I would greet him with “Hi” and wave, he would say “Hi”. After a few days he and a friend decided they wanted to know who the girl was who kept saying ‘hi’ as I must know one of them (he could not remember me). Jeff found his courage and approached, “Do I know you?” “Why yes!, I was Norm’s friend”. “Oh yes”! We talked through lunch and met after school to continue.
I was still riding my bike the two miles to school each day, he drove his Chevy and usually had a car full of friends waiting on rides. We met at the bike rack and talked, and kept talking neither wanting to end our conversation. I was under strict rules to be home directly after school and allowed very few social activities. Eventually I really had to get home but before I left we said our good-byes. I leaned in and kissed him good-bye. The “kiss at the bike rack” changed both our lives. He says it felt like I kissed him as if my life depended on it. Little did he know!
We each went our separate ways me peddling as fast possible. He after being confronted by his angry friends, “what took you so long?” Both of us in that dreamy first love state. When he arrived home his mother asked him if he was OK. He said he was, but all evening he was wondering if he had a girlfriend, what had just happened?
The next morning we anxiously met each other and I again kissed him hello. He asked, if it was OK to kiss me, and I smiled and said yes, any time and he kissed me to test it out. We moved into one locker and that was that. What followed was the most wonderful year of my youth.
Of course with my programming and background I was not allowed to have a boyfriend so everything we did was kept as secret as possible. I was seldom allowed out except for school and a few school events like football games (he was on the team) and dances. I wasn’t allowed to take calls from boys, go to the beach or anything that was customary for teens at the time. So most of our time together was at school and after. Our first real date was the Christmas dance. Then after that the Sadie Hawkins and Prom.
During that year he signed up to enlist in the US Marine Corp which had been his goal for many years. Shortly after graduation he was gone off to boot camp. Back in the days before cell phones we had limited ways to communicate. I wrote letters probably every day, he came home with a bag full and I would visit his ‘gram’ who lived just down the street from me. I would hide my bike in the back yard and sit on the floor beside her chair and we would talk about our favorite subject, Jeff.
He graduated from boot camp I of course missed the ceremony, but it didn’t take me long to get to his home as soon as I knew he was home. I couldn’t ride fast enough. He was now working at Camp Pendelton while I was in school, with few ways to communicate it was very hard to find time together. Two of his friends girlfriends (‘P’ & ‘C’) liked him and between those two and my cult/programming we wound up separated.
I was so heart broken by his loss I lost my posture at home, my parents found out and the consequence was severe. Ritual cleansing, programming to erase memories and his name. My father called his mother and threatened to have Jeff thrown in jail, his mother asked him, “You would do that to your daughter?” she said he sounded like a jealous lover, not a father. Mom has good insight. She had also warned him about “P”.
Leave it to the US Marine Corps they had a solution…send Jeff to Okinawa! Before he left he managed to find me, we had a last visit and farewell Ferrell’s Ice Cream Parlor. Then he was off from Okinawa to the Vietnam war. That was the last I knew.
I graduated and we remained separated for another 26 years. He never forgot me and always wondered about me. I remembered Jeff, but little else. After I graduated in 2000 with my engineering degree. Jeff had been working as a merchant marine engineer on ocean going tugs. He worked long periods out at sea and eventually realized he had to find me. He hired a few private detectives before he found one who was able with special (government) software to track down my step-brother. This was just after I graduated and had finally decided I could come out of hiding. Jeff contacted my step-brother and was told that my step father had died, and that no one knew where I was. The detective told him that I was intentionally staying hidden and was good at it, but after finding my step brother he knew he would find me.
It wasn’t long before they did! I was living with my new in-laws and generally did not receive phone calls or answer the phone. But one day it rang and I picked it up. It was, “Jeff?” Yes, “Are you OK?” “Yes”. I had to see him and he happened to be very, very close. We met with my husband for dinner and re-connected.
Over the next few years on occasion I would get a card or greeting in the mail. It wasn’t until 2007 we were both in crisis and we started talking more. My health was collapsing with what appeared to be ALS. Over the next few months he was there to support me (oh the wonder of cell phones). My husband was not. I dreamed I was dying, my husband on one side of the bed and Jeff on the other. With my last breath I turned to Jeff. There were a many reasons, my health the biggest but my husband and I agreed it was time to end our relationship. Jeff helped me make arrangements to get across country and stay with his parents.
In 2010 my divorce was final and we were married shortly after. Gram was still here and I was able to sit at her side before she passed. This was my third marriage and it has been my longest. Jeff has taught me what unconditional love is and the first person in my life to honestly love me. After we were re-united we slowly put together the pieces of how we had been separated, I regained my memories of him over time. My health improved but I had constant ups and downs, a number of them serious. We have had many wonderful years together despite my programming, health issues, and his PTSD from his combat service in Vietnam.
Jeff knows me like no one ever has. He is an incredible man in many ways. It was a literal torture for him to watch my suffering from programming and ritual abuse. He could predict it coming. When I said my prayers for release he felt the change. Not only that he started to sleep, like he had as a boy before Vietnam. Our years together have been a healing in many ways for both of us.
A day after my last post that details my release from programming by God through prayer Jeff was diagnosed with a pancreatic mass. My thoughts this week have been drawn to our precious relationship and how much his love means to me. We hope to find out more in the coming weeks with regard to prognosis, throwing our fears into God’s loving arms. We have been drawn together more closely than ever and together we look to God. We both pray first for God’s will to be done and for a miracle.