Of Love Letters, Stolen Glances and Family

My mom thought I'd marry some exotic South American girl that I would meet during some future artistic, political, spiritual...pilgrimage. The thought was, of course, appealing given some of my more romantic imaginings of life at the time. The time to which I refer is high school. That period where my very firm beliefs put my future life somewhere on the spectrum between radical political dissident to wondering poet and sometimes actor.

As it happens, I married one of my best friends from high school. Our first meeting came upon the occasion of one of my disciplinary fallouts for having written an editorial that did not please school administration. In response my editor put my column on a one month hiatus and relegated my duties to that of the sport section...women's athletics. This was a dubious turn of events for me. And yet, kismet's sense of timing was again uncanny and my first interview of the month was with a freshman basketball sensation- Meegan Edmiston. We became fast friends and remained that way all through my high school years.

Nothing remains the same forever, though, and something happened the summer before I left for college. My friend grew in beauty, in her confidence and within myself a thought began to take hold. It was a way of looking at Meegan I'd not allowed myself to entertain previously. And once I'd opened that door a crack events conspired to blow it off it's hinges. By summer's end I knew I loved her- perhaps not romantically yet, but I loved her still as people love the ones with which they'd choose to be marooned on an island when they imagine such scenarios.

She asked me to marry her in a letter she sent to me while I was away at college. We held hands for the first time on a visit home from college when we attended a Native American Festival. I kissed her more than a month later during Thanksgiving...well after stumbling around for a half hour talking in the driveway. I said "I love you" when I came home visiting during spring break. She was the first and the last woman to whom I'd ever say that.    

During the year and a half we were apart during college I wrote at least one letter each week, sometimes two. Those letters are presently collected in a wicker basket shaped like a frog and are a testimony to the fact that I am helplessly melodramatic, romantically inclined towards words like "lament", "melancholy" or "yearning" and the naked fact that I was totally overcome with desire for Meegan.

I always know when she is looking at me. It was a game to play when we couldn't talk or weren't right next to each other either in a classroom, in church or elsewhere. It's like hearing a whisper in your head when no one is talking. You look around quickly and there she is, looking at you smiling... Meegan Edmiston. I caught her looking and she caught me looking. In the moments in between staring at her the mind wanders and youthful idealism can imagine such poignant happiness.

We got married in a beautiful New England chapel and we were poor. And young. Well, New Englanders like to get married after an established career so climbing the ladder doesn't disturb married life- or vice versa. I was twenty-two and she was twenty-one, and that seemed young to everyone. I had a degree in Comparative Literature and she was finishing one in History. Together we crushed in Jeopardy but were professionally lacking in any skill. We found our way, however, and in tiny apartments all over New England and Boston we made a life that was happy.

She is now a mother three times over. We have three boys so Meegan is not simply mine anymore. After trying to penetrate some theology late in the night or after having a little go around with some writing project or another I too often climb the steps to our room after midnight and find another human sleeping with my wife. I sigh and lift some unwieldy child into my arms and whisper song lyrics to them as I take them to bed. When I return there she is, with wild hair spilling everywhere and some dream furrowing her brow... Meegan Zillman.

At 15 years-old I interviewed my 14 year-old future wife. I did not imagine that one day I would be smoothing away her furrowed brow in hopes of calling forth happy dreams under midnight stars in a home and family we'd created...from letters and from secret stares.

During this Valentine's week I hope these memories serve as proof for the unyielding love and desire I yet have for my friend, my wife.