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Awhile back me and my wife ran a cattle ranch in a northern tier state. It was several hundred miles west of and on roughly the same latitude as the Twin Cities which is where I live now-a-days. Anyway at some point in time our marriage life found itself on a pretty rocky stretch of road. I got to thinking that if might do something to help rekindle the romantic side of the marriage things might get better. I came up with an idea that required a few months or so of lead time. Turns out that my wife's initials are an unusual group of letters. All 3 are consonants and as we once liked to joke if she could played them in one of our Scrabble games she'd get a total of at least 20 points for them. So getting along with the story I worked them into an connected grouping that made for a pretty design. I drew it out on a sheet of paper and took it to the farrier and had a brand made which I registered with the county agent. In the summertime I went to the auctions and put together a small heard of young Hereford beeves and had then them marked with that iron. I ran them on an outlying part of our operation and come Valentine's day I a couple of hands drove down to the pens near our main house. I asked her to come down and take a look. It took a few moments for her to notice. I could tell that she was surprised and not at all unpleasantly so. But I guess my efforts just weren't right enough to pan out in the way I had hoped they would. By spring she'd run off with the veterinarian. I got to hear that it turned out the man was also a vegetarian and she followed suit. That kind of put a bit of salt on the wound.
Name Withheld
Last year--just after Valentine's Day-- I was married to my beloved in Gibraltar.
We were married in Gibraltar because
he was deported from the US in 2002.
He cannot return to the US
until the immigration paperwork is processed.
We can meet anywhere in the world but within these borders.
In a post-9/11 world, many things have changed.
Immigration rules prevent him from re-entering
this country until all the paperwork is completed.
He lives in Europe with family.
I continue to live here in Minnesota where we met.
"Why him?" friends have asked.
"Is HE really worth it?"
"With all the men in this country, why THAT one?"
"He only wants to marry you to get here" more than one has suggested.
Before he was deported, we had planned to be married, however, there were details that needed
to be sorted out--and time was not in our favor.
It's a heart thing, has consistently been my answer.
I can't really explain.
I know it defies logic ... but the heart is not logical.
It just is. My heart said 'yes' to this man from the day we met.
When I've looked at all of this logically, and
see it for the amazing thing it is,
all I can say is that in my heart of hearts,
I know this is RIGHT for us.
How it will end, I cannot say at this moment.
Between us, there has always been a connection like none other I've experienced.
We are parts of one whole.
And though an ocean has separated us for more
than a year (with only brief visits during this time),
we remain connected in heart... in mind,
in goals.
Very shortly, our first anniversary will pass,
and we remain an ocean apart,
with only phone calls, emails, letters to reach
out and touch.
Definitely not a fairytale beginning to a love story.
Name Withheld
When I was 19, I took an excrutiatingly boring summer job because I needed the money. I was a typist for a small company and all I did was type letters over and over all day. The office was in the warehouse district of Minneapolis and I sat next to a large window that opened. I would take breaks and lean out the window to watch the world go by. My co-workers, mostly older married women, teased me about looking for guys. Mostly I only saw delivery men. Then one day I saw a really sweet black sports car pull up in front of the office building. A young, good-looking man with dark hair got out of the car and went into the office building. I told the ladies, "I've found the man of the day!" Then I ran downstairs and put a note on his car that said, "Suite 302 votes you man of the day!" I ran back upstairs and peeked out over the windowsill to see if he got it. He read the note and looked up searching the windows. I giggled and ducked back inside and didn't think more about it until about an hour later when my boss approached my desk with a handsome young, dark haired man and said, "I think someone is here to see you." I was embarrassed, but he let me know how truly flattered he was by the note. He took me to dinner and we dated a few times, but I guess, in the end... he was only the man of the day.
Kristina Robertson, Minneapolis, MN
When I was breaking up with Davy, a Scottish bricklayer of whom I'd been fruitlessly enamoured for a little over a year, I wanted so badly to bind him to me, in memory, at least, that I gave him my Grandmother's keepsake ring.
There couldn't have been a more inappropriate goodbye gift, nor one that I would regret the loss of more. The ring had been given to me in trust by my dear Dad, the kindest man alive, who
had given it to his Mother way back in the 1920s, when he was working as an assistant to the goldsmiths in Cartier's Gold Room. Although he was never a smith himself, the skilled men who worked there liked him; and he was able to buy the ring over time, and present it as a tribute to his beloved Mother, who was naturally thrilled to have a genuine Cartier item.
The ring itself was one of Cartier's signature pieces: the "rolling ring." Made of three colours of gold, - red, yellow, and white - it consisted of three slim circlets that interwove simply. One rolled the ring onto one's finger as the three circles tumbled over one another. When Grandma Lucy died, I got the ring, and I always took pleasure in the cool, slippery way it rolled onto my ring finger. It was chief among my family treasures, both in sentiment and monetary value.
Besides the preciousness of the ring, there was the fact that Davy's affection for me was practically nil. I had only been a stop-gap girlfriend, useful to fill some time while he was away from home, working in London. An American girl to hang out in pubs with, go home with, and the usual etc. Not only did he not deserve the ring, he didn't particularly want it. Even as I forced it on him, with remonstrances to think of me when he wore it (ha!), I could see the calculation in his eyes as to how much he could get for it in some Glasgow pawn shop.
Shortly after Davy went back to Glasgow, I returned to the States. I was soon writing to his mother's address asking after him and asking her to ask him to write to me. A bit later, I wrote asking if he wouldn't mind returning the ring to me, that I had realized how special it was to my family, and please would he be so kind as to send it back. Of course, I never heard from either of them, nor did I ever see that wonderful, special ring again.
Thirty years later, I still often wonder where my Grandmother's ring ended up. I hope someone nice has it, and cherishes it. But whoever it is, they could never feel how I felt about it. And they will never know how guilty and rotten I feel for betraying the memory of both my Dad and my Grandma with that stupid, reckless gesture of
undeserved, unreturned love.
Eileen Fay, Kingston, NY
The most foolish thing that I did for love was to fall in love with an ex-boyfriend. I guess looking back it was very foolish of me to believe that love was better the second time around. I had broken up with him when I found that he was marrying this girl that he had told me was his "cousin" from out of town. Anyway, he called me and asked me if I wanted to see him. I said that I wasn't doing anything so I set up a time to meet with him. Well, we met and the heat between us was so intense between us that we nearly had the candle melting between us. I listened to him as he explained that he was marrying this girl because she was pregnant with his child and he was doing what he thought was right and that the rumors weren't true. I saw him at least 3 times a week up until the day of his wedding. I was asked to join him in the groom's room about a half-hour before the wedding. We were going at it hot and heavy until his fiancee knocked on the door wondering if everything was going okay. He deflated like a lead balloon. I snuck out of the room and stood in the back of the church like a scorned woman. The bride's brother (who was an usher) asked me if I was a friend of the bride or the groom. I replied, "A friend of the groom." He placed me up in the front of the church. He spotted me when he was coming out of the room to marry this girl and when they introduced them after the vows, he was rather embarrassed knowing that I was on his side of the church. I felt that I was foolish enough to fall in love with him after HE cheated on me with this girl. I am now married to someone else and have two beautiful daughters and laugh about every once in awhile!!
Julie Silver, Saint Paul, MN
I grew up in a large metropolitan area back east. At college, I crossed freeways, and running, couldn't make classes on the other end of campus. I transferred to Gustavus Adolphus College where my dorm room looked out on a pea field! My boyfriend had a temporary job he hoped would become permanent. When he asked me, "Would you consider moving to Moorhead?" I said, "Yes!"
Name Withheld
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