Imagine a group of diners, none of whom have ever sampled Mexican food, engaged in lively conversation about the exquisite culinary experience that are enchiladas. Imagine some of the diners disputing the existence of enchiladas while others argue weakly about the several dishes which might be mistaken by the uninitiate for enchiladas, yet still allowing for a slight possibility that enchiladas may be real. That pretty fairly describes a spirited online discussion I stumbled upon last night—a discussion, generally, about love and romance, but more specifically about love at first sight.
That’s right. Love at first sight. Some were for it, others against. Some flatly disputed its existence or the existence of anything like it, while others offered scientific explanations for things which might, at first blush, seem like love at first sight. Everyone was skeptical, and none claimed to have experienced it.
All of this leads me to tell you a story. It’s a true story. An absolutely true, unexpurgated and unembellished story. I vouch for every word of the story, and you may regard the following as my solemn affidavit as to what transpired on the morning of Thursday, March 14, 1968 at approximately 10:00 a.m.
The scene was a high school in suburban Atlanta, Georgia. It was a school of considerable size. I’m sure there were bigger high schools somewhere, but that high school seemed enormous to me. The student body was well over 1500, while students at the small town school from which I’d transferred numbered only 75 or 80. I was a little fish in a veritable social ocean.
On the morning in question my spirits were not particularly high. I was homesick. I felt out of place. I had only been in Atlanta for a few weeks, and I felt as though I wasn’t supposed to be there. Georgia wasn’t my home, and home was very far away.
When the bell rang signaling a class change I was in no hurry to get my books together and make my way from the east wing of the school to my next class in the west wing. I was more inclined to make my way to the parking lot, slip into my car and leave. I figured I could come up with some convincing excuse, some reason to give the principal, as to why that had been necessary should my absence be discovered. Somehow, it didn’t seem likely that I’d be missed.
I was the last one out of the classroom, and I paused in the hallway just for a moment, then took a right turn toward the far end of the hall. That’s when I saw her. That’s when it happened.
Walking down the hallway toward me, talking and laughing with another girl, was the most arrestingly beautiful creature that has ever come before my eyes. She was not merely beautiful, she was lovely. She was small, feminine and adorable, and when she smiled I swear she gave off light. It seemed to me that a light shined on her as well, as though God himself was taking rather extraordinary measures to point her out to me.
She paused for a moment as her friend entered a classroom door. She glanced at me and smiled, then disappeared around the corner at the end of the hallway.
It was an unsettling experience. My thoughts and feelings were firing, screaming, soaring and exploding with all the excitement and color of a Roman candle, and after a momentary paralysis I started around the corner in the direction she’d gone. She was nowhere in sight, vanished into the sea of students populating the hallway. For a moment I wondered if I had seen her at all.
Every day I looked for her during every class change. I would arrive at school early and leave late, looking high and low for that girl. One morning I caught a brief glimpse of her leaving the cafeteria, but she was gone in an instant. The remaining months of the school year passed without another encounter, and the long, slow months of summer dragged on. It was not until classes began again in the fall that I saw her again. What followed is another story for another time.
The important part of this story is just this: On that morning in March when I first saw her in the hallway, I fell utterly, totally and completely in love with Mary Ann. Not a mere physical attraction as you might expect, not a youthful infatuation or high school romance kind of love, but an abiding, permanent , mature and all consuming love born full grown. I knew nothing about her, not even her name, but I knew that she was the singular love of my life, and there could never be any other. It was love at first sight, and it has lasted a lifetime. It has only begun.
I have heard people talk about love growing stronger as the years go by, but I must confess that I do not love Mary Ann any more today than I did on the morning of March 14, 1968. In that magical moment when I first saw her there was instantly born in me such an unconditional love as I have come to believe God has for each of us. It was love without measure, love without bounds. It could not have been, nor could it ever be, greater.
I believe today that God arranged that moment quite deliberately and for a purpose. The chain of events which followed proved fraught with knots, tangled links, sorrows and unimaginable joys—the very ingredients from which a rich and colorful life is made. A meager, frail or tentative love would not have survived the long journey we have made together. We had no time for love to grow. Our love was challenged and viciously assailed from the moment it was first declared. The strongest mettle was required from the very beginning.
God may do as he pleases, and at least once it has pleased him to make love at first sight a reality. I suspect it has pleased him many times.
God may give such gifts as he pleases. To some he gives talents, success or fame. To me, he gave an extraordinary love for an extraordinary woman. It came suddenly and without warning, complete and perfect in the moment of its birth. I saw her, and I loved her, for that moment and for all time. Love at first sight. It’s the only kind I’ve ever known.
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I have come to believe that reading about love is a far more satisfying endeavor than reading about hate. Who knows, perhaps your willingness to share the story of your love will empower more of us to seek out love and ro banish the hateful messages that envade our livesj.