LOVE

He Chose Me

What an Air Force officer taught me about the kind of love that lasts.

The author’s family

He walked in with a presence you don’t question.

His back was straight, his shoulders set, and that Air Force flight suit draped him the way it was meant to — earned, not worn. He didn’t need to try to be noticed. He already was.

He looked like Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I. — dark hair, a mustache, dimples in both cheeks, and that little twinkle in his eye.

Handsome in a way that caught me off guard.

The two officers walked over to our table — one a pilot, one a navigator. The pilot had his two young nephews with him. It was the playoffs, and ours was the only table available to watch the Boston Celtics, so they joined us.

My friend welcomed them. She was there to meet someone that weekend, so she turned toward them and started talking.

I stayed where I was.

I didn’t turn around. I didn’t engage. I ignored them. My life was already full — a four-year-old at home, two jobs, and school squeezed into whatever space I could find. I wasn’t looking for anything or anyone. I had built my life around the idea that no one would be interested in a package deal.

I was sure I was out of their league. It never crossed my mind that he would be interested in me, which made it easier to ignore him.

Much to my surprise, we ended up going out together. We went to a pizza restaurant and sat across from each other. The conversation carried us. One story led into another. We laughed easily. We recognized the same songs, references, and humor.

He called his parents to check on them. They had planned to visit that weekend, but then an opportunity to fly came up, and he took it.

We were only four weeks apart in age. We graduated high school the same year. We both grew up in New England. We both had railroad tracks in our backyard. There wasn’t a place the conversation couldn’t go. Baseball. Music. Siblings. Religion. Politics. Food.

I told him about my ghost stories — what I had seen, what I had felt, the things I knew were real.

He listened.

After dinner, we went dancing. I was shy. Naïve. So aware of him. Determined not to be taken advantage of again. Waiting for the shoe to drop. A terrible combination.

This man had graduated from the Air Force Academy. He was flying fighter jets. He carried himself with a confidence that made him seem so much more worldly than I was.

I put him on a pedestal. He’d done so much in his 24 years.

I didn’t want to get it wrong. I didn’t want to look foolish. I didn’t want him to see how unsure I felt. So I followed his lead.

He stayed himself. Not a persona. Not an officer, just a boy who grew up in Vermont.

On the way out of the dance club, he stopped at a vending machine. I watched him, expecting him to choose gum or mints. Instead, he reached in and pulled out a pack of baseball cards. A wax pack, with stale bubblegum.

He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t check my reaction. He didn’t adjust himself.

For a second, I didn’t know what to make of it. I mean, he was an Air Force officer — a gentleman, composed, confident, and standing there buying baseball cards!

I know I would have thought twice. I would have wondered how it made me look.

He didn’t. He was who he was. I was amazed, and that stayed with me.

Since I was driving, he paused before getting out at the motel and asked if I wanted to come in.

I absolutely wanted to know more about him, but I didn’t want him to think I was looking for anything physical.

I didn’t soften my answer. “It depends what I’m coming in for.”

“Whatever you want to come in for.”

Well now, I was in a pickle.

I bravely said, " We could watch a movie or something.” He agreed.

So I went in.

We lay on the bed, fully dressed, and talked throughout the night. One conversation led to the next until, finally, daylight broke and we fell asleep. Thank God my son was having a sleepover at my mother’s.

When his pilot knocked on the motel room door, he stepped outside and quietly closed the door behind him so no one would know I was there.

He didn’t hide me. He protected me.

We spent the rest of the day together.

And somewhere in the middle of that day, he told me about her. Someone he had been seeing. He said the relationship had been easy and physical, and then he said he ended it.

Because there was nothing there.

No depth. No conversation. No real friendship.

That was the moment I fell in love with him.

I knew it.

Because I had already seen what happens when people stay in something that isn’t enough.

He didn’t stay. He knew what he wanted. He wanted more.

He also didn’t know I had a child.

I had a life already in motion. I was doing what had to be done. I told him the truth about my circumstances. He saw strength in me that I never saw in myself. He said he was looking for someone who could hold a family together when he was away.

I didn’t see the woman he saw when I looked at myself. But somehow, he did.

And I started trying to meet her.

I miss the me that he saw.

It’s been over five years since he died, and I miss him every day.

Especially when it gets tough.

The bills stack up, the kids stop talking, and there is no one to help me move yet again.

I miss the way he could cut straight through a problem instead of dwelling on everything that might happen.

That night in 1987 became a long-distance relationship, then a marriage, and eventually a lifetime together.

We kept learning and growing with each other. We kept changing. The connection didn’t fade. It deepened.

In the beginning, after all the stories I shared, he would go back to his apartment at night, and that quiet no longer felt satisfying. He wanted me, us, with him.

Ten-hour phone calls. Ridiculously large phone bills. handwritten, letters…

Once he believed me about ghosts, he was nervous. So I got him a flashlight and a door hanger that said “Ghostbusters.”

We laughed about it.

A year later, on our wedding day, we played that song. The one that first played in the car as we drove to our first date.

We built a life. Not easily. Not perfect. Yet real.

There were years we were close and years we drifted. Moments that worked and moments that didn’t.

But we stayed.

We could sit in a room and say nothing and still feel connected. We could look at each other in the middle of a crowd and understand by just a look. We could be driving and speak the same thought out loud at the same time.

At some point, later, when we were already deep into that life, we stood under the night sky.

He looked up, pointed, and said, “Look at all those stars. That’s how many choices I had to be with someone.”

I was at first insulted. Only now do I understand what he meant. There was still that part of me that waited for him to say that he regretted his choice. And I waited for him to finish the thought.

He didn’t.

Because when life got hard — and it did — he stayed.

He developed diabetes along the way. We revamped everything:

left out the chocolate and carbs,

Avoided the fast food places.

Cleaned out the cabinet, fridge, and freezer.

He wasn’t happy.

There came a point where it wasn’t about following every rule. It was about how he wanted to live.

He wanted fullness. Joy. A life that felt lived.

Chocolate.

A Whopper.

I knew what that meant. That’s what he chose sometimes. I knew it could cost us time. And I could have fought him on it.

There was that person inside me who wanted to ask, "Am I not worth changing for?” I didn’t.

I made small adjustments, quietly, where I could. I tried to guide things without taking control of them. Because loving him meant honoring him and his wishes.

His heart stopped in the car after we visited our youngest son and attended a Baltimore Orioles game. I never got to say goodbye.

And I have gone back to all of it.

The beginning.

The middle.

The end.

Looking at who we were at twenty-four.

What we said.

What we didn’t say.

What we chose.

What we refused.

We didn’t live small with each other.

We pushed.

We disagreed.

We got it wrong.

But when something mattered, we knew it.

We didn’t make each other smaller to keep things calm.

I see it clearly now. I see how much we got right.

Every time we avoided something difficult, it waited for us later.

And I know the difference between peace and silence.

Between being loved and being managed.

Between being chosen and simply being accepted.

I tell anyone who will listen, look closely at what you’re building.

Not what it looks like. What it feels like to live in it.

Because once you’ve lived something real… you don’t forget the difference.

He chose me.

I chose him.

That’s the part that never left.