Past and Future

                I don’t think she knows that I chased after her that night. I don’t think she knows that I held that little box as tight as I could in my hand until my knuckles changed from white to red and back to white. But I did. I knew that something had gone horribly, terribly wrong; I had never seen that look darken her face before, not even when her father left. Those looks are reserved for the kinds of tragedies that knock you off your feet and send you spiraling into the unknown. I know this because that one look almost sent me to the same place.

                At the moment, I didn’t care what everyone else in the restaurant thought of the scene. And although I still don’t care, I do wonder what it must have looked like to everyone else. Two normal looking people, one small box, and a phone call. A woman stumbling out the door as a man sat at a table staring after her for a few moments before running out the door and calling her name. I wonder if they knew that her life and mine had been changed forever. I wonder how many of them rooted for us.

                That moment changed me. I stumbled around the city for I don’t know how long trying to wrap my head around what had happened, still clutching the box, endlessly terrified of the unknown. I was scared for her mother, her brother, her, and even her father. It was torture, knowing that something was wrong and not being able to help her. At the time, I didn’t realize that I thought nothing of myself; I only see that in hindsight. It gives me comfort to know that I was doing the right thing all those years ago.

                She was furious when I found her. She thought her lack of communication had pushed me away, but it only made me fight harder. I knew she was hurting, and I knew I needed to help. It’s funny how things work, sometimes. She thought that with all her screaming and yelling in the quiet hospital, I would be forced to leave. I knew that with all her screaming and yelling, she needed someone there for her more than she had ever needed anyone before. I couldn’t leave her like that, but I knew I couldn’t stay. So I sat outside in the waiting room for hours. If she needed anything, I wanted to be there to make sure she got it.

                Of course, she knows about that. It’s hard not to notice, especially when I never left. But as far as I know, she doesn’t know how lost and desperate I felt that night at the restaurant, knowing that she may have been hurt beyond repair and knowing that I wasn’t there to help. But it doesn’t matter anymore. She might not know about that night, but she knows the future. We see the future every day in our children. Children who have learned from the mistakes of their parents and from the sins of the past. Children who have grown far wiser than their father ever was. The past is behind us. Long live the future.