Who Would Believe?

The phone rang. I could hear it from where I was. In the bath, 7.15pm, I was due at a meeting of the Friends of the Gembrook Bushland Park at 7.30.  I'd defrosted the freezer that morning and taken out two mini roasts for dinner. Gord and I were batching still, Lib was due home the next day.

I thought it would be secretary Merle on the phone, with some new request to bring something to the meeting. There were two messages on the answer phone from her when I got home, and there were emails that morning. Merle's printer had broken down.

Gord brought me the cordless phone with a bit of a grin on his face, reinforcing my thought that it was Merle. I can't even wash the sweat and stench from me without being hounded, was my feeling.

"Is that Carey?" It did sound like Merle. Or did it?

"Yes," I answered in my annoyed voice.

"This is JB, but I was formerly JW." The first name didn't didn't register. I was coming to grips with the fact that this was not Merle ringing me. The second name instantly made me aware who the caller was.

"You're kidding me," I said.

"No."

I had not heard from her or seen her for more than fifty years. She was my childhood sweetheart. My first love. Yes, it was love, as far as love can be for a boy of ten years old to whom such emotions were new and not understood at all. Way back in the very early 1960's we declared that one day we would marry.

J went on to explain the why and wherefore of her call, while I listened almost incredulously. Twenty two years ago I had written a letter of condolence to her mother after I had seen in the newspaper notices that J's father had died. Her mother did not pass on the letter, in which I had included some basic info of my life and situation and my contact details, until earlier this year. J had not acted straight away as she'd had a difficult year and then hesitated, as anyone would, before dialing the number, asking herself , 'Will I or Won't I?' I am so happy that she did.

Not having received a reply to my letter of 22 years ago, I didn't know if it had been received. I had no contact details when I wrote it. I sent it sealed in an envelope in a letter to the funeral director who put the funeral notice in the the paper, asking him to forward the letter to Mrs W.  As years passed I forgot about it.

But I didn't forget J. I often wondered what life had brought her, was she alive still, where did she live. I knew from the death notice that she was alive twenty two years ago and she had four children, nothing more. Our childhood romance did not endure into a new year after we were put into different classes, but for a couple of years we were close friends and shared an important part of our early lives. She told me she still had a post card I sent her from a holiday my family went on in 1961, and a handkerchief from Sydney that I brought back for her from the same trip.

For the past week we have been exchanging emails and learning of each others lives. She lives interstate and has a truly amazing story which I do not feel at liberty to speak about publicly, but the renewed contact, and the fact that I have found this lady who had  a significant impact on my life in childhood, and that my longstanding wondering is now resolved, has brought me great joy.

I'm still smiling all day long.