A love story that bridged an ocean

She didn’t look back as she walked through the gate. By contrast I could not turn my gaze away from the sight of the one I loved disappearing from my life. Had it all been in vain these last eight months. After years of uncertainty, I believed “us” was working out. But now, this. Just a year I kept telling myself, but I knew each morning I would wake up to the same pain, the same distance. “If it’s meant to be it will be,” my friends kept telling me in an attempt to prepare me for the worst. But they weren’t the ones who were feeling the loss. Oh, how I felt it. That throbbing ache through my whole physical being caused by the sense of loss. There would be no smile to brighten my day. There would be no touch, however innocent it was. There would be no heart sharing as we sat overlooking the river. There would be, well, nothing – just an empty void.

Canada seemed like the very end of the world to me as my love left England to head there. At the time there was no world wide web to bridge the gap. Besides I didn’t need to be reminded as to just how wide the world was anyway. I knew I had to let her go. When God called her, she had to follow and I had to trust. Trust Him, trust her and trust myself. What else could I do?

My solace was the written word. Fifty-two weeks, fifty-two letters. Back and forth they journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean, each one an outpouring of feelings and emotions. Way beyond the usual letters, these were my heart, unwrapped and laid bare by life’s scalpel. Each line written in loss and in love, the ink formed out of tears and my very lifeblood. How could time pass so slowly.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, the calendar teasing me with ever slowing laughter. Until, finally after four months, she called. It was unexpected, but more unexpected was the conversation. Hope rose like a seedling breaking through the parched soil. She loved me too. She missed me too. She wanted to talk about “us” and a future together. Oh, how quickly a life can be changed by a few words. My outlook was taken from a dark horizon to the most blazing sunrise peeking up over a perfect seashore bringing promise of a warm, glorious day.

Our letters changed from then on. Each week one went and one came. Each week, the intensity grew between us, despite the distance. We fell in love deeper and deeper as we poured out our hearts without seeing each other face to face. We wrote of plans, of romance, of weddings, of two lives joining together as one. We wrote of “us”.

After eleven months she stood as I walked through the gate. This time there was no looking away. Our eyes met through a mass of unfamiliar faces. Would there be the chemistry of which we had written? Bags fell to the floor, feet took off and two people in love reunited. People stood and watched as what had been thousands of miles and thousands of hours apart became history in one instant.

22 years later, the love is still growing…