It was a cold winter evening and I
was on vacation, visiting my grandparents. I was sitting next to the fireplace
with grandpa and we were playing chess and talking about what was going on my
life, how was it to be in college and what changes have I done to my life since
I left home. From time to time grandma would come in with cups of mulled wine
and sit next to us, just to listen to us and check out if I am all right…And I
was, because I was reminiscing all the things that happened throughout my
childhood in that very house, and being next to my grandparents, talking to
them, seeing the gleam in their eyes, because I’ve grown up and I am able now
to talk straight to them and show them how mature I am…After all, it’s been a
whole year since I haven’t seen them and I was enjoying it to its fullest.
The hours went past us as we were
heading deeper into the night, enjoying the hot wine, playing the game me and
grandpa were playing for so long and even if it was late in the night, we were
passed 2 a.m., the night was still young. Just as we finished yet another
game, my exhausted grandma finally went
to bed...In the moment she walked out of the room, grandpa leaned back on his
old armchair and looked directly to my eyes...I have to admit, I had no idea
what was going through his mind, so I proposed another game, but he refused
saying that the time for games is done…For a few seconds I was stunned, I had
never seen my grandfather so steady…And then he asked me the question I feared
the most, because he had always known what’s going on in my life(he could read
me like an open book and knew me better than his own pockets): “How are things
going in your personal life?”…Of course he knew the answer. I had grown right
next to him and knew me better than anyone else…He was aware that I was going
through a terrible heartbreak and he definitely wanted to change that, because
he couldn’t stand to see me suffering, although I was doing my best to hide it,
he told me: “The mask that you’re trying to wear while you’re here might fool
your grandma, but that won't work on me”…So I told him, everything he already knew, but needed
to hear it from me…I told him how, since high school ended, I was only hitting
walls, both professionally and personally, and that I am losing hope that I
will ever be able to commit to a real person who would want to spend the rest
of her life right next me…I told him how my high school sweetheart had left me
just as got admitted to college, how I got my heart broken by a girl that still
haunts my nights and, unconsciously, won’t let me sleep, how I was so desperate
to find that special woman and I got nowhere. I told him how, one by one, my
childhood dreams were starting to shatter away and that I was losing hope on
everything and thought that there was really nothing and no one there that
could drag me out of this dark pit of endless depressions…
He, then, shut the chessboard and
looked straight into my eyes…He was analyzing me to the smallest detail. He
wanted to know for sure if I was just a pitiful stupid boy or that what
I said was the very truth…He turned to the fire and said that he was about to
tell me a story that defined his entire life. He told me to lie back and relax
because the sun was going to set up to the sky before this story would have
ended...
“Son, this is the story of my life,
because it changed it the way I had never dreamed of. I am telling you this
only now because you need it and I believe that you are prepared to fully
understand the meaning of it…It was the summer of 1962 and I was at my parents
house when, on one day, someone from the national army came and said that he
had an enlistment order and that I had one day to pack up my things because I
was about to get detached to a military base. I knew this day would come, so I
got my stuff and get ready to leave home. My mother started crying saying that
she would give her life just for me to stay home and not get involved in any
war. I knew she couldn’t take it if I was to die, but I tried the best I could
to settle her down and reassure her that nothing would happen to me and that I
would return home safe and sane. She kept crying for the entire day, as I was
confronting my father. He was a tough, severe, strict man that won’t be moved
by anything. I told him the news and he, for the first time in my life, told me
to take care of myself and watch out for anything because the outer world is
tough and that if I was frail, I would not stand a chance. I thanked him and he
immediately left so I wouldn’t see him cry, but I could feel it. The next day had
come and the soldier that came in the other day had arrived. I hugged my
mother, shook hands my father and left with that man in his army car. In the
same day, we had arrived at the local detachment where they told me I was going
to be sent to a military base in the northern mountains of our country. For a
moment, I thought I was going to lose my breath. That place was five hundred
miles from home and, given those times, fifty years ago, there was no possible
way that I could return home in a weekend off…But shortly, I manned up and said
to myself that I was ready to do this and it’s something that I had to do. I
had traveled for three days in order to reach the specified location and
arrived there in the evening of the third day of travel. I was given a bed and
was told that the next day I will commence my military duty. I wasn’t too
thrilled by it, but I had no other option. Beginning with the next day, there
were two years I had to go through until I was allowed to go home. But then, I
realized that days will go by and I will get to meet new people and have the
time of my life in that very garrison…So, days went by, the summer was done,
and in the fall I got my first permission to go out of the garrison. I took
that opportunity to visit a nearby town. I had left on Friday morning and I was
told that I had to get back by Monday. So I set foot to see new places and meet
new people, but because it was autumn and the roads were very damaged, I had to
take my horse and rode to the town. I arrived at an inn and got a room for the
weekend. I took my horse to the inn’s stables and left to visit this part of
the country I had never seen before. I was already accommodated to the cold
weather, the fresh air and the magnificent landscape, but I didn’t get the
chance to meet people, so I went to a local tavern. I ordered some hard liquor
and sat down at some table. Of course people had already noticed that I wasn’t
from those lands and started asking me questions about my origins and what I
doing in that part of the country. The people were so friendly and I decided
that I would sit down, drink and talk with them. The next two days I returned
to that tavern where I met the same people and started drinking and talking
about all kinds of things. On Sunday morning I went to a local church and
prayed and then leave to the garrison. Another three months passed and I was
allowed again to get out in the town. It was near the Christmas time and I was
thrilled because I knew that these people were so faithful and kind I would
have a peaceful time to recover from all the hard training I had endured
through all that time. But in that very weekend something really special
happened. I had seen the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. What can I tell
you? I was all sweaty, my heart would break through my chest and I had nothing
to say to her, although in that moment I realized that was the woman I wanted
to live next to. It took me another three months so I could get in touch with
her and try and talk to her. She found my accent funny and thought that I was
different and that she liked me, too. But I had to return to the garrison, and
this time…I wasn’t allowed to leave there for six months because I had punched
another soldier. Those six months were like walking on hot coal…I couldn’t stand
the thought that I couldn’t see her. But I got through that, too and the first
time I was allowed to go to the town I had set my mind that I was going to
propose to her. I told her in the same night and she jumped into my arms,
kissed me for the first time and told me that she would like nothing more in
this world, but to spend the rest of her life next to me. The next day, she
invited me to her house, so I could meet her family, especially her parents,
whom I had to prove that I am trustworthy and that I would take great care of
their daughter, if I were to marry her. There was only one obstacle, her dad
would not accept the fact that his only daughter would marry to a man who is
not even from those parts of the country and that I would take her away with me
to settle at my parents’ house. He told me clearly that he cannot allow that to
happen, not while he is still around. He, then, asked to leave his house, never
return there and leave his daughter alone…My world was shook from its’
foundation…I was devastated…I simply didn’t know what to do. I loved her so
much and I wasn’t able to see my life continue in any way without her.
And so, my military duty was close
to the end and I was supposed to leave those lands and leave the love of my
life behind. This was by far the biggest problem I had confronted in my entire
life. So, in my last permission, I went to the town, go to the same tavern,
talk to the same people, enjoy the same drink with them(I must admit that
inside of me, I was crying my heart out, because I was aware that I was never
able to return there and see the beautiful woman who stole my heart)…I was
walking through the town, but nothing looked the same, not even the all-mighty
mountains that were overlooking the town didn’t seem so impressive, not even
the fresh air didn’t seen to puncture my lungs anymore, not even the
magnificent food didn’t seem to taste so well…In my mind, nothing was ever
going to be the same. And as I was walking through the town I see her and in
that second I start running towards her to declare my love and give away my
life for her…but she was going to the church with the entire family and her
father immediately intervened and told me that this is a sacred day for the
family and that he would not care if I was dying. In that moment I realized
that there is no getting out of it…I was about to leave that place and leave
half of my life there…On countless nights I told myself I was going to commit
suicide and put everyone in my family through great sorrow, because I didn’t care…I
just wanted everyone else to feel how much I was suffering…But there always the
thought, the hope that never died, that one day maybe, just maybe, I would see
her again…
In the next few weeks, my military
duty was done and I was sent home. I had arrived home and I received I big
welcome from my mother, who couldn’t stop from crying and a hug from my father.
I could read in their eyes that seeing me returning home safe was the biggest
satisfaction of their lives. But these had no effect on me because I still
couldn’t get through that sad feeling that a part of me is not where it
belongs, that half of me is trapped five hundred miles away from me…I just
didn’t seem to get past it, no matter how hard I had tried, nothing worked…I
spent another year at home, helping my parents out by doing the chores at the
farm…But I still wasn’t settled…
So, one day I braced up and told my
dad about everything that happened while I was enlisted...It took me a whole
day to try and explain him what I had gone through the past year and that I
couldn’t take anymore of it and that I had to see her and have her…Surprisingly,
he accepted my request to go there after her and told me that, no matter what
happened, he would always trusted my judgement because I had never failed
him…And so, the very next day, without telling anything to my mother, I left
for that small mountain town to get the love of my life back with me. The
journey was amazing, I had enjoyed every second of it, the evergreen forest,
snow covered mountain peaks, the fresh air that pierced my nostrils, everything
seemed so bright, so beautiful, and all of these because I was going through
the thrill of my life. I was bursting with excitement and couldn’t wait to get
there. In the meantime, I had got my mind set not to leave that place until I
get her. I was willing to steal her or do something crazy, because it was
her…and I couldn’t leave without her.
In the first second I got off the
train, I started running towards her house willing to accept no refuse. I got
there and tried to talk her parents into letting her daughter marry me. Even
they couldn’t believe that I went suck long of a distance to see their daughter
again, but the father remained steady on his previous answer…He would not let
his daughter marry away from home land…I had no choice…I was determined to make
her run with me. And so, in the next night I had met her in secret at a
specific location and I told her about what I was going to do…I also told her
that I can’t waste my life chasing ghosts and that if she wouldn’t follow me, I
would have to go back home…Then, with her eyes all watered up, she told me that
she was going to follow me to the end of the world because she hadn’t met
someone so special, so kind, so thoughtful…She was willing to die for me as I
was willing to die for her…In the next day she got her stuff and ran from home
in order to meet me at the train station…We left that town and we acknowledged
that might be the last time she had thrown her entire life behind…But she didn’t
care about it, because she was with me…And that was all that
mattered...Needless to say that my family gave her a big welcome and treated
her like their own relative…We started making wedding plans and, suddenly, we
realized that no one from her own family would be come…I knew that this was
going to be a big disappointment for her, if she didn’t have her family there,
at her own wedding…So, I left home and set to go to her family, alone. When I
got there I told them about the wedding and her father actually tried to kill
me…He was, then, calmed down by the entire family and accepted my invite…So,
they all came to their daughters’ wedding and finally accepted me as their
son-in-law…We had a big wedding and, as you can see right now, son, forty-six
years later, we still can’t be separated…”
Grandpa finished the story and went
to the basement to grab another bottle of wine as I was still analyzing what he
just told me. The sun was up now and night had, imperceptibly, gone…As he
returned he told me: “Son, I love you more than I love my own children, because
you have always been close to me. This is why I have told you this story, so
you could understand that the true, sincere feelings never go away and no matter what happens with your
life, no matter how rich or famous you get, if you don’t have that special
someone next to you, you’ve achieved nothing…You must always follow your heart
in this matter because your brain and instincts are useless…You must chase true
love because nothing will bring it to you, if you just stand alone, in the dark,
and cry yourself out…She is out there, I can definitely assure you of that, but
you have to go looking for it, otherwise, you will only manage to live a
lonely, unfulfilled life…You can get past any ghost of the past, any sorrow,
any enemy, if you have that ‘someone’ alongside with you…You should pick
yourself up now, because the time for stories it done”
…He opened that bottle of wine, set
the pieces on the chessboard and another day was about to begin…
