Remembering Us

I first saw Carol in the autumn of 1960.
We were both only fourteen.

She has never admitted remembering
that first quiet moment,
as though it belonged
to another lifetime.

Perhaps memory
keeps different journals
for different souls.

She crossed the schoolyard
as though she had wandered
out of an older dream,
carrying a smile
that seemed untouched
by the world—
a smile that had forgotten
its own beauty.

I never spoke.

At fourteen,
the heart already knows
a language
the mind has not yet learned.

The seasons gathered us,
then carried us apart,
until our senior year,
when the invisible thread
that had been quietly weaving
beneath ordinary days
pulled gently enough
for both of us to feel it.

For a little while,
the universe smiled
through two young hearts
that believed
forever
was simply another name
for tomorrow.

Then graduation arrived.
Like birds startled
from the same tree,
we opened our wings
toward different skies.

She found her way
to the University of California,
walking beneath old oaks,
through Berkeley’s streets
where questions seemed
as important as answers.

I heard another calling.
The distant ocean
kept whispering my name,
and somewhere beyond the horizon
old Hawaiian kahunas
seemed to chant
through the rhythm of the waves,
reminding me
that some journeys
begin long before
our feet ever move.

I hitchhiked across America,
from the Golden Gate
to the crowded streets
of New York City,
discovering that strangers
often carried pieces
of my own unfinished story.

Then Europe called.
I believed I could survive
on a dollar a day,
a loaf of bread,
a bunk in youth hostels,
a notebook filled with poems,
and the quiet strength
that still lingered
inside ancient cathedrals,
where silence itself
felt like prayer.

Life, however,
has a way of turning pages
without asking permission.

Soon I found myself
wearing the uniform of war
in Southeast Asia,
sitting behind an M-60 machine gun,
holding in my hands
something built
to end conversations
before they could become understanding,
to silence dreams
before they became lives.

Even there,
beneath unfamiliar stars,
I sometimes remembered
the warmth of your smile
and the light
that lived quietly
behind your eyes.

Years drifted past
like leaves
floating down a slow river.

I searched for meaning
in distant countries,
on lonely highways,
inside books,
temples,
churches,
meditation halls,
and the faces
of countless strangers.

Yet beneath every sunrise,
something within me
never stopped remembering.

Eastern teachers say
that what belongs to the soul
cannot be lost.

It only waits
until the mind
grows quiet enough
to recognize
what has always been there.

Love,
I have discovered,
keeps its own calendar.

It is never early.
It is never late.

It arrives
precisely when the heart
has surrendered
its need
to control time.

When our lives
crossed once again,
it did not feel
like meeting.

It felt
like remembering.

As though two rivers,
separated by mountains
for countless seasons,
had simply found
the same ocean
they had always been flowing toward.

Now I sometimes think
about that shy fourteen-year-old boy
standing silently
in a high school hallway.

I wish I could place a hand
upon his shoulder
and tell him,

“You will carry this moment
for a lifetime.

She may never remember
your first glance.

But you will.

And somehow,
both memories
will be true.”

For Love
is never measured
by who remembers first.

Love is measured
by who is still there
after the years
have silvered your hair,
softened your heart,
and transformed two separate lives
into one long prayer.

Perhaps this is why
the old mystics smiled
whenever someone asked
about soul mates.

They knew
we do not truly find
those we are meant to love.

We simply awaken,
one quiet moment at a time,
to the ones
who have been walking beside us
through unseen lifetimes,
waiting patiently
until memory
becomes recognition,
and recognition
becomes Love.