The Scene Behind the Scene

non-subject: the scene behind the scene
aww ~ 6/05/13
___________

I still love Luke.
There, I said it.

Of course I still love Luke.
Like our babe in my womb that was aborted in 1978, our relationship was aborted a couple years after the babe.
I chose to abort both.
_______

2005.
In October, 2005, I left The Way.
In December, 2005, I joined an anti-Way online forum. I became engrossed in this online life spending hour upon hour reading;
responding;
chatting;
reuniting with people from 20 years previous, most of whom had left The Way a decade or two before I had left.
_______

2006.
On a June day in 2006, I sat at my computer screen once again engrossed.
I had just finished reading a thread entitled "Do you ever think of past loves?"
As I sat pondering what I had just read and embarking upon another thread, a message popped up in a square box in the middle of my monitor:

"Hi Carol,
It's Luke.
I visit here from time to time. I saw a thread where you asked about my whereabouts.
I had to register in order to send you this message.
It'd be great to connect.
God bless,
Luke"

I sat in total momentary shock staring at the box with the message.
My heart skipped a beat, or ten.
Butterflies fluttered all through my tummy.

How could this be?
Hubby and I were barely getting through my online affair that I recently ended.
This couldn't be happening.
But it was.
All my feelings for Nick, with whom I had had the affair, dissipated in an instant.
In that same instant I was thrown back in time with Luke.
And all the pent up suppressed love for Luke that I had buried began to gurgle, like lava at the bottom of a volcano.

Immediately I responded to the box on the screen:
"Hey Luke, are you still there?"

"Yes, I'm still here,"
the box responded back.

Luke and I then "met" in a private chat room and exchanged phone numbers.

I can't recall now if Luke & I spoke on the phone that afternoon or a couple days later; I think it was a couple days later.
I do recall I was nervous.
How would I respond?
What would I share?
How was I going to tell Hubby?
Do I even tell Hubby?

Yes, I had to tell Hubby.

The phone call...
Luke had married; I had known that already. His wife, who was the girlfriend after me, was the reason I didn't pursue Luke again. After all, I wasn't Way Corps anymore when Luke and I split. I had AWOLed; I wasn't worthy of Luke who was Way Corps.

Luke told me that he had gotten to know his wife through her daughter. At the time back in the early 80s when he met them, he had thought that our babe, had I not aborted, would have been about the age of his later-wife-to-be's daughter.

Luke and his wife had married the same year Hubby and I married.
Luke and his wife had chosen to home school their children; Hubby and I had also chosen to home school.
Like myself, Luke's wife had chosen a more natural route to raising their children.
Like myself, Luke's wife had a love for horses.
Luke was the CEO of a successful company; Hubby was a CFO for a successful company.

It was like a parallel reality.

Hubby met Luke via phone.
I think they met on my and Luke's first phone call connection.
After they met, I asked Hubby how he felt.
He responded, "I feel like I've just met my ghost of 25 years."

I too faced ghosts of my own - mainly overwhelming grief that gurgled and then gushed forth.
Grief for the unborn life.
Grief for the decades of suppressed love I held for Luke.
Hubby held me through the grief.
In his own way, Hubby grieved with me.
In July, 2006, Hubby went with me when I chose to acknowledge the life ended in my womb. I buried some tokens for that life, buried them among the feral ponies of Grayson Highlands.
Hubby dug the hole and we buried the box of tokens.
Hubby and I sang "Amazing Grace.
Luke wrote me that day or shortly thereafter and asked how it went...this ceremony I had decided upon.

Luke and I spoke on the phone multiple times those first months.
Within the first few calls, Luke shared his grief.
For years after he was married, he grieved our lost relationship.
He told me how once on an ocean vessel he had thrown a box overboard.
I can't recall now if that box was literal or imaginary; seems it was literal.
But, real or imaginary, in it he had placed that grief.
He had let it go.

In one of our first phone conversations, Luke stated, "You were my promised land and I fucked up. But God has fed me with manna."
I doubt I'll ever forget those words.
My heart plunged at the time; such a mix of feelings.
Regret.
Grief.
Love.
Gratitude.
Bittersweet is an understatement.
I never knew I meant so much to Luke.

And now, in 2006, here we were.
_______

2013.
My initial, overwhelming longing regarding Luke has faded.
Maybe "faded" isn't the right word. Regulated, perhaps?

For me, the longing still arises in waves.
But they are gentle waves.
Waves I can trust.
Waves I can ride instead of overwhelming, tumultuous waves that I have to navigate.

************