So, it's Friday April 7th 1995, a little after 7pm. I'm sitting in a downstairs restaurant off the Fayetteville square called "Hugo's". It's a popular place for first dates, small, good atmosphere, the place has been a staple in Fayetteville forever. Sitting across from me is a 25 year-old blond haired woman with the most amazing green eyes I've ever seen. Since it's a first date, I actually found a clean shirt and I ironed a pair of jeans to wear, but this woman looks like she spent the better part of a day getting ready for our date. Her make-up was perfect, hair beautiful, dressed to the nines. I keep waiting for her real date to show up but every time I blink then open my eyes, she's still sitting across from me. I'm already starting to feel like I'm way the hell out of my league. This woman is smart with a razor sharp sense of humor, but how smart can she be since she's agreed to go out on a date with me? She's as nervous as I am, but our conversation comes easier than I thought it would all throughout dinner. We sit and talk for quite a while after we're done eating and I notice guys giving her a glance as they walk by our table on their way out of the restaurant. Oddly, I find myself wanting to punch each of them in the face, which doesn't make any sense to me since this is just a first date, but the feeling was there.
It's a very nice night outside, and I'm trying to think of anything to make the date last longer. I ask her if she'd like to walk around the square for a while. We start talking and I'm having the best time just talking and walking around the square over and over. This woman is so easy to talk to. She's laughing at my jokes, which means she's either very polite, or easily amused, most likely the former I'm guessing. We keep walking around the square, talking, watching other couples doing the same thing, just making the small talk of first dates. We walk past the police department that will become my 2nd home in less than three years. But that night I didn't care about the police department, my train wreck prior relationship, or anything else. All I could think about were those green eyes and that kind, wonderful smile she kept turning my way. After walking a groove into the sidewalk around the square, she finally said it was getting a little late and she had to work the next day so I drove her home. All the way back to her place, I'm trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with me. My heart is racing, I can't seem to focus on the road and all of a sudden the guy who couldn't shut up all night now has nothing to say. She asks me if something was wrong. I told her "No, I'm just waiting to either wake up or for you to turn into a pumpkin because I had a really good time tonight and I'm waiting for the ball to drop on top of my head." How dumb of a thing to say is that? She just laughs, and says "Well, I'm off work at 5 tomorrow. If you want, you could pick me up where I work and we could maybe go to dinner again if you want? I had a really good time tonight too." I'm now speechless...this woman wants to go out with me again? WTF is wrong with her? Did I wear the right cologne or something? It sure as hell can't be me she likes can it?
But, I guess it was for whatever reason. The next night we had dinner, and the day after that we grilled some burgers at the city park and talked all afternoon while we watched a group of people play Frisbee. I remember sitting at that picnic table thinking "This woman is so easy to talk to, and she's so damn cool. I really like her. There's NO way she's going to want to keep going out with me." But, she did. A couple of weeks later, we'd pretty much been seeing each other every day, even if just to bring her lunch at work if I had that day off from work or a break in my class schedule to go see her on her break. I asked her while driving her home after dinner one night, "So.....could I say...or would you say that you're my girlfriend now? Because I really like you a lot." If there's a stupider line to try to make it official with a girl, I've never heard it. Without missing a beat, she says "Yes. And since I can tell you've been waiting to ask me that, now that we're officially boyfriend/girlfriend, can we please go to your place?" She could always catch me off guard like that. It was one of things about her I always loved.
Four months later, I asked her to marry me at that same city park bench we watched the Frisbee people at because it was the first place where I realized that I might be in love with her. She made such a big deal over the ring I bought for her, even though it was a modest half carat, you would have thought it was a 5 carat princess cut diamond. I put the ring on her finger and as those beautiful green eyes lit up and the tears in them bought my soul, for the first time in my life, I knew what it was to be truly happy. Two months later we were married. Nine years after that, she gave me the best gift I could ever imagine, a very lanky 9 pound 2oz baby boy. Almost thirteen years later, that same lanky infant is now almost a lanky teenager who looks so much like his mom when he smiles that my heart hurts to the point I almost have to look away.
Five years ago, some kind of GD chemical imbalance in her brain started a mental illness chain reaction that turned our lives into a nightmare that took her away from me in every sense of the word. I became her enemy, because according to the multitude of psychiatrists I've talked to, people with her kind of mental illness turn on the ones closest to them. Why? I don't know. Neither do the doctors apparently. Why us? No one can answer that. In a little less than five years, the woman I would have given my life for with no regrets and no remorse became a woman I was scared to sleep in the same house with or leave alone with the son she gave birth to. It's very difficult to reconcile reality when the woman you love so much has her hands wrapped around your neck while she's screaming that you've summoned demons to possess her. She's mentally gone, her family tells me the same thing, she's just....gone. There's no memory of that day in the park when we were so happy knowing we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. No memory of holding our son on the day he was born, no memories of so many days sitting in our glider on the back porch watching the woods, drinking tea, and just enjoying each other's presence knowing we were there for one another and our son no matter what happened. All the doctors are able to do is keep her medicated to the point she's not a threat to anyone. I couldn't bring her back, no matter how much I begged and pleaded, I lost that battle and it will haunt me until the day I die.
I look at my son everyday and I see the young man who favors his mother so much in so many ways, in so many of his mannerisms, in so many of his facial expressions, that it's hard to not simultaneously smile and go into a crying fit at the same time. Everything good that she was I see in him. He misses him mom, I miss my wife. What did we do to deserve this? Five years ago we were a normal, boring family, working jobs, going on vacation every once in a while, raising our son. Sometimes the cards you're dealt make you wonder WITF you want to play in the first place because in sure as hell seems like the game was thrown from the get go.
......All this began on a first date 22 years ago with a beautiful blond haired, green eyed wonderful woman on Friday April 7th, 1995 just after 7pm. I miss you so much Gina, you will always have my heart and soul.
That's where I'm at this week you'll. Running from ghosts that keep popping up like f'd up jack-in-the boxes. I'll be back to my usual wise-ass self at some point, but this week sucks. I hope everyone is well, take care SKMB.
