There is one thing, however, that has dogged me - you might say tormented me - for decades now. I cannot entirely shake it and it leaves me constantly wondering about its meaning, precisely because I think the answers are complex and their roots lie in a murky realm we know little of - and even the best minds yet having walked this earth have either little knowledge of or have commented little on due to the general unbelieving nature of this earth's inhabitants....
Sooo, here I go.
When I was around 12 years old, I first laid eyes on what I considered the most beautiful and graceful (young) woman I had ever met. We rode the bus together and I would see her every day - an irresistible thing that would torment me, but that I knew I might never enjoy the company of. We were born in two different worlds. I was a little bit of a hick from a family farm, she from a middle class home - just a mite more proper and refined than my background. She had a younger brother she dearly loved and parents who doted over their two offspring with great care. Not over religious (Protestant) - but good values ringing in the home. I observed her for several years - trying to detect clues to the key to her heart which I helplessly felt I might never obtain. Her heart was carefully hidden; deeply buried and little exposed as to how she really felt. She was more at home in the company of the adults around here than with the immature beings that surrounded her. So my quest became one of finding ways to spend some time with her or to impress her with my maturity and potential. It was in that quest that I accomplished some good things during those formative years. If a lofty goal was met, it was worthy of her possible attention for having reached it. So, in retrospect, she possessed one of the best qualities of woman - the ability to bring out the best in a man. It is a twisted hard-wired thing that all men must endure; the insatiable desire to impress (or please) the woman that captains their heart. God knew what he was doing when he was building the software that drives the two juxtapositioned sexes together to form a fused better whole. Thus, when there is a marriage or welding of two individuals together that will last into the eternities, how strong that weld must be to be unbreakable. Every act in my life (since marriage) that I have felt the Lord's guiding hand in has been to weld my wife and I together into that unit that will endure the eternities together.
Back to my first love.....
I can honestly say I loved Tawny - but did not know it at the time. I just knew that I could not resist my attraction to her. It was more than a physical attraction, there was a little destiny to it, as well. Like I have said before, I just KNOW what I know. To the point, I will say something off the cuff - and it will happen exactly as said 10 years later. So we spent time in each others presence in band, honor society, clubs at high school all the while waiting until I was 16 and could ask her out. I turned sixteen and planned the perfect triple date with one of my best friends (fellow tuba player in our marching band who ended up actually going out for almost a year with Tawny and being her first kiss...which was tortuous beyond words). We planned our Homecoming date for weeks with the flower colors coordinating, the perfect romantic little restaurant in an older part of town, her best friends to accompany us with my other friends so it would actually be fun and we wanted no flaws in the evening. It was the best high school date/dance I ever went to. Perfection - and I ended up giving her a hand full of hersheys kisses on her front step saying something to the effect that I knew the real things weren't possible, but that I wanted to give her the next best thing. BOLD for a 16 year old boy. I was rollin' the dice and going for broke - all the while trying to be casual about how I truly felt about her. I had a perfect school record, straight A's, class valedictorian, Class prez, Band Prez, Honor Society Prez, track team star ranked top three in the state as a sprinter and discus thrower. I had it all and I was gunning for a spot in her heart. I never did know how she felt about me except that one time we were on a bus going to a band competition and she had fallen asleep. She really did alot of talking in her sleep and her best friends in the flag corps asked her questions about who she liked - the only way to get the truth out of her since she kept things of her heart so closely guarded. They asked her about some of the other guys who were vying for her attention and she actually wrinkled her nose in disgust. They then asked about me, and she broke into a nice smile in her sleep and said, "Oh, Eric...." and then drifted back to sleep. So everything I did, was about the capture of her heart. I even was selling myself to her parents about what a great potential future son-in-law I would be - all so laughable looking back. I was only 16 and had fanagled an audience with her folks in their own home just so I could sell myself to them.... I think I knew at that point that my religion was a catch point for them and I began losing hope that something might ever blossom. I knew I was a possessor of the truth - and she somehow would have to see that in order to cross over to my world; compromise the other direction was not possible where a forsaking of my true knowledge of Jesus Christ's plan would have to occur.
Later, I was blown away at the parallels between the situation I felt and the looks of the actors Natalie Portman and 'Anakin' and Tawny and I as well as the issues that they wrestled with in the Star Wars movie where there were such intense feelings - but nothing could be done about it.
So, enough history and to the point of this blog piece that has caused so much consternation for me through the years.
We, of course, parted but I thought of her every day (possibly) for several years. I compared every girl to her and only found one other that could measure that I ended up smooching - my first heavenly kiss (she later joined the church and I actually ended up going to a different university my first year just so I could focus and not end up being tormented by her in the same way Tawny had tormented me earlier). So finally, I left to go on my mission to Brazil and that intense feeling began to fade as I focused on serving the wonderful people of Brazil and my Savior. Amazing how losing yourself for others makes your own torment go away - whatever the source of it may be. One night just three or four short months after I had been in Brazil I began having intense agonizing dreams about Tawny. I couldn't shake the feeling of despair I had all day during the waking hours. Back to sleep and tormenting feelings of despair again. I was in a funk and really worried about Tawny. Remember, I had barely even held her hand and we had no professed love for each other. I was actually never sure if she even cared if I lived or died.... but I suddenly had an overpowering and relentless feeling of grief for/about her that I could not shake. Two weeks later when letters arrived that caught me up with events of the same time period back home - her brother that she loved dearly had died in a horrific high speed car crash. The whisperings being that he hit the tree so hard the hood came back and decapitated he and the other front seat passenger. I was floored by the news - and almost as much that I had "felt" her pain from 3000 miles away. Someone I was not related to and had no intimate connection to - except for what I had hoped might be, in my mind.
So, for years, I have puzzled over that mechanism of communication of souls between two people - and maybe a deeper connection that may have existed between her and I in the pre-existence. Had we made commitments to each other that could not be fulfilled due to disapproval between her parents and her, of myself in spite of my sterling qualifications otherwise. I cannot be certain as those things are left on the faded path of ( what might have been CLICK LINK). Each choice we make for good or bad, forges the next step in our reality. In a world where agency is the governing principle, we must be allowed to make mistakes, to fall or rise on our own so that we can say our works were our own and therefore the judgements of God, truly just and fitting. Christ making up the shortfall where we cannot. God has a plan for Tawny and her family - one certainly (I feel) different had her folks responded differently to a mild exposure to the true gospel as God gently nudged them and continues to work miracles in their lives.
My mother had this gift with her own children - the best example I can think of was sitting in the TV room watching the tube one Sunday afternoon and my mother getting restless and then saying something bad had happened with my older sister. Within a few minutes, the phone rang and it was my sister letting us know that she had just gotten in a car wreck. My mom always knew - and it always just freaked me out. So maybe I inherited that intuition from my mother - but that gift she had was related to her own flesh and blood - not someone apparently disconnected from the situation. Not like the situation with Tawny.....
I have several more poignant examples of this very phenomenon from my own (later) life that prove it is not just a fluke that I can deny or simply dismiss. A topic for later on how I know I was supposed to marry into the Ephraim Moulton line.
Definitely more material for the sensational Wood Zone.
When someone dearly loves another person, a spiritual link is forged, I believe. It's not a telepathic thing so much as it is a "my spirit is aware of that person's spirit and so I can feel that something is up with her/him" kind of thing. As spirits can travel at the speed of thought, knowing no time or distance (as we now define them), they can communcate purely with each other, even while still in mortal bodies thousands of miles away from each other.
ReplyDeleteI have seen the same phenomenon in my family and have had a few moments where I as in tune enough to pick up on things like that, too.
Brown Family,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think two people who love each other connect spiritually to a level that there is some sort of communication that is how we will communicate when we are in spirit form and no longer have vocal chords to manipulate air to produce sound - but I am/was baffled at how she would communicate that to me when there was no reciprocated love. Is that sort of a distress signal sent out and anyone who is in tune with that person's "wavelength" able to pick that up?? Just way cool to think about.... We are very dynamic beings and able to do alot of things I think that will surprise us. Our potential is very untapped at our current level of understanding.....
I am going to blog another one about a distress signal from a (reciprocated) love that got through which eventually tied into a fantastical experience that occurred the night our little boy died. Off the charts interesting stuff.... Absolutely unexplainable in my mind. I guess I have to have something to keep me guessing - otherwise I would just get bored with the whole thing.... :)