A look of understanding filled Mr. Harris’ eyes. “And you would do it again in a heartbeat if you could, right?”
“I’d give anything to have more time with them.”
“That’s just the thing, you can’t, son. No matter what you do, how much money you make, or how many senior centers you fix up, nothing will bring them back. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have happiness. True happiness.”
I dropped my head back down as I exhaled a deep sigh.
“Look, son, I understand that you want to protect yourself from feeling the sort of pain you experienced. The kind of searing pain that feels like it’s splitting you in half. It hurts so bad you can’t breathe, you can’t speak, you don’t know how you’ll make it through the day, much less the next minute or hour. But that’s the thing about that sort of pain, it only comes from loving someone completely and truly, and if you don’t let love into your life, you’re not living, you’re barely surviving. Is that the example you want to set for Lexi? That if she loses love she should just close herself off and never let anyone in again. Or do you want to teach her that love is resilient? Love is restorative. Love is a miracle.”
I stared down at the ground in silence, knowing that his question was rhetorical.
“Did I ever tell you about Alice?”
The only woman Mr. Harris had ever talked about was his late-wife Maggie.
I lifted my head. “Alice?”
A light lit in his deep green eyes. “Alice was my high school sweetheart but I loved her from the first time I saw her in church when I was just ten years old. She walked into Sunday school wearing a yellow dress with white flowers on it and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
“I finally built up the courage to ask her to be my girlfriend the summer before high school. We were together for six years. I joined the Army on my eighteenth birthday and gave her a promise ring the same day. I was stationed in Germany and she wrote me every week for over a year, and then one day the letters just stopped coming.
“I wrote her every chance I got, but all of my letters went unanswered. I didn’t make it back home for another thirteen months and when I did I found out that she’d died from a brain aneurysm. Her momma and daddy were just too heartbroken and in grief to let me know. I’d kept up hope those months I’d been overseas with no word that she’d just met someone else and had moved on with her life. Finding out she was gone destroyed me. I swore I’d never love again.
“Then, four years later, I met my Maggie. Loving Maggie didn’t take away from the love I’d had for Alice. I built a life with Maggie. We had two beautiful children. One that we lost tragically. But I would never take back my time with either of the loves of my life. Just like loving Sadie doesn’t replace the life you shared with Ashley. Both of those loves are miracles. Don’t ever turn your back on a miracle. Life is too short.”
