A Simple Call - Conclusion

Everything just came out in a rush; it wasn’t a sentence as much as it was one big long word.  “I really miss you and I’m done missing you. I love you and I know you love me and I think we should get married.”

I think the term ‘pregnant pause’ might have applied here, although, I’ve never understood that phrase, does it mean the pause was big and uncomfortable or that one pause gave birth to another pause?  “Uhhhhh, Karla?”  I was tempted to say, ‘Duh,’ but I held back, really, who else would call him and say that?  After affirming my identity, he continued, “Well, I'm not against this idea, but can I ask what’s happened from the time I left this morning?”  

I told him about my evening and everything that was said, the questions, my answers, Chris’s advice, all of it.  After all that he only made one request.

“Karla, I’m going to be back there next weekend before you can overthink this and change your mind.  Pick out the ring that you want and I'll go buy it.  My request is, can I please be the one to ask you to marry me?"  By the way, Ken is yet another person who consistently reminds me to stop overthinking situations.

 My tension suddenly popped and his question pulled the first laugh out of me.  I told him, “Of course you can.”  We talked for a long while.  The whole situation brought out the highly animated me.  Neither one of us could hardly wrap our minds around what had just happened.  I know I kept thinking, ‘this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy,’ but I couldn’t have peeled the smile off my face if I’d tried.  Ever since then Ken says living with me is like living life on a roller coaster, but he says it with a smile on his lips and love in his eyes, so I’m good with that.

I tried desperately to get hold of Chris that night, but I couldn’t get an answer at her hotel.  The next few months were beyond hectic for me, but I still kept trying to contact her.  I can’t remember where I got the information, but I heard that she was in the southeast part of the country, helping with yet another disaster.  Chris didn’t have a permanent address anywhere, her personal life tended to be in a constant state of upheaval.  It was frustrating.  I really wanted to tell her the outcome of that one simple call I made that night.

It’s amazing how time can go by at the speed of light….

In the spring of 2002, my phone rang and with another simple call I found out that Chris had died, she had succumbed to cancer a short while back.  I had never met the woman that called me, she told me she was Chris’ partner.  I guess Chris had talked about me to her, enough so that she thought I should know what had happened.  I talked with her for a little while, reminiscing and laughing about Chris and her life and what she had meant to each of us.  The term bittersweet definitely applied.

After I hung up, I sat on the floor in my bedroom, with my back up against the bed and I just stared out the window.  I felt the grief well up in my throat and a hiccup kind of sob escaped my lips.  I felt the tears stinging my eyes, and then begin to spill unchecked down my face.  I was filled with such a horrible sense of regret.  I hadn’t talked to or seen Chris in years, not since that night.  I felt at that moment that no matter what had happened, no matter how busy I had become, I should have worked harder to find her, to tell her what our evening together had meant.  I should have told her that three months from that night, Ken and I were married.  I should have told her that in the years to follow Ken and I had three beautiful children and that Ken had adopted my son.  I should have told her what she meant to me.  I should have told her that with her encouragement, on that night so long ago, I made a simple call, an event that was the catalyst for a lifetime of change.

**Author’s note:  I hate the idea of having regrets.  Combined with other events that had happened I decided that the people I love would know how I felt about them.  I wouldn’t hold back my feelings, my admiration, and so on. I resolved to let my friends and family know, on this side of heaven, that they made a difference in my life.

Proverbs 12:25 “Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.”

1 Thessalonians 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up...”