Black Roses Red-Something i just sort of came up with

Perhaps if the summer of 1949 had never come, she would still be with me now. I’ve always wondered what would have happened between the two of us if she were still with me now. Would we continue growing in love beneath the trees, would we end up getting married and starting a beautiful family like we had always dreamed we would, or would it end up like other young loves and fade away like a speck of dust in Texas? Our love was pure and unlike anything else. We shared friendship and compassion, knowing each other that we know ourselves. We told each other everything, from something life changing to what we had for supper that evening and no matter what happened or what circumstances we were under, I still loved her more than I loved myself. And I still love her just as much, or even more today.

I can still see her in my mind, her red hair shiny and golden as the summer sun reflected it in the light, and her deep green eyes that had always made me loose myself inside, her porcelain skin and perfect red lips. I could still feel her energy and hear her laugh giving me warmth and assurance. I could see that smile crawl along her perfect lips and the perfect white teeth. She was perfect to me and made me want to strive to be a better person and that’s exactly how I knew I was in love with Rose Belle.

I fell in love with Rose when I was fifteen years of age, the year of 1947 and nothing could change my mind. I had known Rose almost all my life, but one day I walked into school and I began to have a change of mind. I never had thought much of her or about her, but suddenly I heard that laugh and saw that smile and I wasn’t able to take my eyes away from her, whether her back was to me or not, I was attached. She began to recognize my attraction, and soon returned it. She became everything that mattered to me and everything I saw.

Every time I think of her I think of all the wonderful things we had shared and all the things she had said, but then my mind shifts to what had happened in August 1949. Rose had suddenly come down with pneumonia after a long and hard rainy spring. Her fever was high and I remember coming to visit her a few days before she passed. I remember touching her forehead, feeling the outward heat and the perspiration all over her body and feeling her small body, that had gradually gotten smaller over the summer, shake underneath my fingertips. She slept all the time and was getting weaker by the day, not responding much to medicine, for the illness was stronger than her body. Her skin that was always so beautiful and porcelain turned to an unhealthy hollow gray and I couldn’t bare to watch her slip away from my grasp. She never removed the necklace I had given her for her sixteen birthday. It was the day I had asked her to go steady with me and I gave her the necklace to symbolize our relationship we had. It wasn’t much of a necklace, but she treasured it. It was silver chain with a locket and an engraving on the front with our first initials. At the end of August, her body could no longer take the never-ending battle and passed. She died with the necklace around her neck, the locket clasped in her hand. I was there and the feeling would never leave me. I felt empty, with a whole carved in my heart where her life had been.

After her funeral and many tears during, her mother handed me a letter with the name “John” written in her perfect handwriting. I walked home after the funeral, her necklace in my pocket, and her letter in my hand. I sat under the tree where we had shared all our deepest conversations, and our first kiss. I ran my fingertips over the letter for several minutes, knowing it had once been in her weak hands, before finally coming up with the courage to open it. Then I read:

My Dearest John,

I love you. If I could, I would start off every conversation I have with you with those three powerful words, because truly I mean them. You’re absolutely everything to me. John, you have been there for me when no one else was. You were the shoulder I could cry on, the boy I could rely on for everything, and lastly the boy I will always love. I always knew, from that day you first smiled at me, that you were the one I would love forever. No one could ever take that spot and at first I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but as time passed, I knew exactly what it was: Love at first sight. I never believed in it, and I never thought I would, until the day I saw you in a completely different way.

John, if you’re reading this I know I must be gone from this Earth and gone from your grasp, but John? You must promise me something even if I’m not there to make you do it. I know when someone you love dies they always make you promise they’ll move on to other people.

My dearest John, I love you with everything I have and that’s why I lived as long as I did because I had something to live for everyday. I always had something to wake up to in the morning. Because I love you, the only thing left I desire is for you to not feel obligated to not move on to other girls. I know you’ll always love me and I can’t imagine ever moving on rom you, but don’t wait around for something that’s not going to happen, John. I will never return to this Earth and you must not sit around and wait for me too.

I love you. I need you, I want you, I desire you. You knew me more than I knew myself and you know what I was thinking about the other day? I was thinking about how the two of us have grown up watching our peers move from relationship to relationship, always facing heart break. Then I compared it to what we had. What we had was pure. What we had was beautiful. What we shared was something that would have never gone away. John, today as I’m writing this letter, I know that my life had a point and a purpose because I know that what I had was real and worth living every day for and I don’t regret one second my life spent with you.

Remember our promise, John.

I love you,

Sindy