Better to have loved, then to have lost... Try it.

The Following is a portion of a letter i shared with my sister in law. The exact details as to why I told this tale are rather confidential, but the story is what I needed to share. it is a tale that only a few close confidants know, but ten years later after losing a woman I loved, it seems to be a good time to share it with the world.

There was a story I wanted to tell you, before you were shipped out to basic. I do hope that you read it over at least once. Long before you and I met I was seeing a young woman by the name of Emily Silverman. She went to the same high school my first long term girlfriend did. To say we did not get along would be like saying oil and water do not mix. In our high school years we generally avoided each other, and times where proximity could not be avoided we just did not speak, lest a shouting match break out.

In November of 2002 close to a year after breaking up with that same girlfriend I was ready to begin dating again. I ran into Emily at a party my friend was holding. It was not sparks flying or anything like that. Rather I willingly took the time to reintroduce myself to her, starting with a heart felt apology for my behavior when we knew each other previously. When I returned to Columbia after Thanksgiving I had an email waiting for me, with her phone number and a message. “Want to hang out? Maybe go dancing.”

Our first night together was eventful. I treated the whole thing like a first date, brought flowers, the whole nine. Things were going so well when I moved in for a kiss she dropped the bomb.

“You do know I am seeing someone, right?”

If on November 29^th 2002 you heard a faint screaming of the word “fuck” that was me. But something else happened that night, we hung out, talked, danced and eventually did kiss. She told me she wanted to leave the man she was with, but did not want to be a serial dater. She encouraged me to go out and date other people as well as her, give her time to sort herself out. I told her I would, but never got around to it. We hung out every weekend of December, briefly parted ways for new years, and resumed in January. At the time I never recalled being happier. It was around the 3^rd week of January that she called me on not dating anyone else, and pressed me to do it again. A week after that I started talking to your sister.

The last days of January and first weekend of February was an emotional roller coaster for me. I slept with Emily for the first time the night of Janurary 31^st, and woke up to see the Space Shuttle Columbia had disintegrated over Texas. In hindsight I should have taken that as an omen, but my belief in such things is weak to this day. About three days later I went out with your sister for the first time. In true Jenny fashion she really never gave me the chance to explain my situation. Waking up next to her, very sore from what you sister did to me, I finally got to tell her what was going on.

Much to jenny’s credit she did not cry, or feel betrayed that after sex on the first night I told her she was not the only woman I was seeing. Later on she admitted that some of the times she called me up trying to get me to come over cause she was sick, were cries for attention, but by then things had long since changed.

So for the month of February 2003 I was dating two wonderful women. I like to say there was the one I loved, and the one that loved me. To Emily’s credit, she kept saying she needed to meet your sister, saying she needed to “approve” her. Jenny was open to this idea as well, something that shocked me.

On March 19^th 2003 my life changed in a way that even 10 years later I find hard to reconcile. I got a frantic phone call from Emily, telling me something exciting just happened to her, and it meant big things for me as well. She wanted to wait to tell me in person. She told me she would be over at my Dormitory bright and early the following Saturday, because she started a new job Friday. The last words I ever heard her say were “I love you James. I can not wait to tell you.”

At 4: 19 PM on highway 65 heading to Marshall Missouri, Emily swerved her car to avoid hitting a coyote. She arrived at the University of Missouri Hospital 2 hours later and was in intensive care. I immediately dropped everything I had when her mother called me, and was at the University Hosptial Saturday morning, March 21^st. I begged her to hang on, cause she had something to tell me. Told her everything was going to be okay. I held her hand as she slipped away at 8: 22 am March 21^st.

Her mother, Kathy, later shared with me that she had left her boyfriend Jeremiah, and was working to transfer to the University of Missouri. Though Kathy did not say it out loud I guess the plan was going to be she and I would move into an apartment together.

Sister, you talked about how both you and your husband have irrevocably changed. I hope that tale shows you how I understand that. In my life I went through something at 20 years of age that no one should have to go through. And it changed me in ways I can not describe. But your sister did not run away from that, she was not afraid of what I had gone through, and she did not give up on me. I am not the same man that I was when Jenny and I first met, I am not the same man she moved in with, and I am not the same man she married. More to the point, Jenny is not the same woman she was at any of those points either.

Now as to why I chose to share this with you now? Because I should have shared it ages ago. That I did not reflects my failure to you as a friend, and a brother. Maybe there is a hint of better late then never, or a vain hope that this will give you something to chew on during those moments of mental auto-pilot. More then anything else I just want you to know that I understand, more then you know.