It was the first day of school. When I asked a classmate about her, he told me to forget it. She has a boyfriend, he said.
A few months later I heard she’d ended her relationship. But I waited at least half a year to ask for a date. When I telephoned her dormitory and asked nervously for her, I transposed the syllables of her first and last names into ludicrous garble. “Dinner on Saturday？” I proposed, embarrassed and expecting rejection. “I would enjoy that,” she answered, sounding pleased.
On Saturday I greeted her at the dorm and was again entranced by her loveliness. I had made reservations at a restaurant 30 miles away. I lost my way and drove aimlessly on rural roads for an hour as my exasperation mounted. She remained good-humored happy, she said, to tour villages whose histories she had read about.
We never located the restaurant, and then almost ran out of gas. We finally ate at 10 p.m., hamburgers and fries at a dinner. In her floral dress, with her straight blond hair and classic features, she stood out among the local kids.
Back at school, I was ready to apologize for the evening. But I felt her warm hand take mine, and then she quickly kissed my cheek. “Thank you for a wonderful evening,” she said softly. Before I comprehended what had happened, she disappeared into the dormitory.
How many times have there been moments like that, moments of such encompassing grace and love that I doubted their actuality？ Moments like the day of our marriage, when on a crisp Sunday morning on the Pacific coast she entered the church on her father’s arm and I gazed down the aisle at my soon-to-be wife. Or the moments when our two children were born and her face became radiant as she emerged from the unreachable realm of labor into exaltation.
But October 15, 1993, was different. That day, we arose at 5 a. m., having a hard slept. How can you rest when a blade will soon sever flesh so dear？ She kissed both of our children as they slept, but they never stirred or said “Good luck” or “I love you, Mommy.” In the hospital, after we signed th