All About English
Ask And You Shall RecieveAll About English
Ask And You Shall RecieveEnglish Short Story 006
There was a blind girl who hated herself because she was blind. She hated everyone, except her loving Boyfriend. He was always there for her. She told her boyfriend, 'If I could only See the world, I will marry you .
One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to Her. When the bandages came off, she was Able to see everything, including her boyfriend He asked her,'Now that you can see the World, will you marry me?' The girl looked at her boyfriend and saw That he was blind. The sight of his closed eyelids shocked her. She hadn't expected that. The thought of looking at them the rest of her life led her to refuse to marry him Her boyfriend left her in tears and days later wrote a note to her saying: 'Take good care of your eyes, my dear, for before they were yours, they were mine.' This is how the human brain often works when our status changes.
Only a very few remember what life was like before, and who was always by their side in the most painful situations. Life Is a Gift from God!!! Today before you say an unkind word - Think of someone who can't speak. Before you complain about the taste of your food - Think of someone who has nothing to eat. Before you complain about your husband or wife - Think of someone who's crying out to God for a companion. Today before you complain about life - Think of someone who went too early to heaven. Before you complain about your children Think of someone who desires children but they're barren. Before you argue about your dirty house Someone didn't clean or sweep - Think of the people who are living in the streets. Before whining about the distance you drive think of someone who walks the same distance with their feet. And when you are tired and complain about your job –think of the unemployed, the disabled, and those who wish they had your job. But before you think of pointing the finger or condemning another Remember that not one of us is without sin and we all answer to one MAKER. And when depressing thoughts seem to get you down - Put a smile on your face and Thank GOD you're alive and still around.
The cheerful little girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five. Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them, a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box.
"Oh mommy please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please?"
Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box and then looked back into the pleading blue eyes of her little girl's upturned face.
"A dollar ninety-five. That's almost $2.00. If you really want them, I'll think of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save enough money to buy them for yourself. Your birthday's only a week away and you might get another crisp dollar bill from Grandma."
As soon as Jenny got home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies. After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick dandelions for ten cents. On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.
Jenny loved her pearls. They made her feel dressed up and grown up. She wore them everywhere, Sunday school, kindergarten, even to bed. The only time she took them off was when she went swimming or had a bubble bath. Mother said if they got wet, they might turn her neck green.
Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come upstairs to read her a story. One night as he finished the story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"
"Oh yes, daddy. You know that I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh, daddy, not my pearls. But you can have Princess, the white horse from my collection, the one with the pink tail. Remember, daddy? The one you gave me. She's my very favorite."
"That's okay, Honey, daddy loves you. Good night." And he brushed her cheek with a kiss.
About a week later, after the story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"
"Daddy, you know I love you."
"Then give me your pearls."
"Oh Daddy, not my pearls. But you can have my baby doll. The brand new one I got for my birthday. She is beautiful and you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."
"That's okay. Sleep well. God bless you, little one. Daddy loves you."
And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle kiss.
A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed.
As he came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent tear rolled down her cheek.
"What is it, Jenny? What's the matter?"
Jenny didn't say anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy. And when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace. With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here, daddy; this is for you."
With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's daddy reached out with one hand to take the dime store necklace, and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and gave them to Jenny.
He had them all the time He was just waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could give her the genuine treasure. So it is, with our Heavenly Father. He is waiting for us to give up the cheap things in our lives so that he can give us beautiful treasures.
God will never take away something without giving you something better in its place.
MESSAGE OF THE STORY
The greatest gifts happen when you share love and touch others.
What matters in life... how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how you gracefully let go of things that are not meant for you.
True friends are those who care without hesitations, who remember without limitations, who give without expectations and love even without communication. Friendship doesn't need everyday conversation doesn't always need togetherness, as long as the relationship is kept in the heart, true friends never go apart. Sadat Moshtaghian
Volunteer: a person who freely offers to do something
get to do something( informal): to have the opportunity to do something
suffer: feel pain
rare: نادر ، کمیاب
appear: used to say how something seems, especially from what you know about it or from what you can see
blood transfusion: transfer of blood from one person into another
survived: نجات یافتن، زنده ماندن
combat: fight
situation: condition, circumstance وضعیت
hesitate :to pause before saying or doing something because you are nervous or not sure مردد بودن
progress :if an activity such as work or a project progresses, or you progress it, it continues
pale: colorless
fade: gradually grow faint and disappear محو شدن
trembling: to shake slightly in a way that you cannot control, especially because you are upset or frightened
The Gift Of The Magi
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name "Mr. James Dillingham Young."
The "Dillingham" had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called "Jim" and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn't go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling--something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pierglass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's. The other was Della's hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della's beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: "Mne. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds." One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the "Sofronie."
"Will you buy my hair?" asked Della.
"I buy hair," said Madame. "Take yer hat off and let's have a sight at the looks of it."
Down rippled the brown cascade.
"Twenty dollars," said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
"Give it to me quick," said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim's present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation--as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim's. It was like him. Quietness and value--the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends--a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.
"If Jim doesn't kill me," she said to herself, "before he takes a second look at me, he'll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do--oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?"
At 7 o'clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: "Please God, make him think I am still pretty."
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two--and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
"Jim, darling," she cried, "don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say `Merry Christmas!' Jim, and let's be happy. You don't know what a nice-- what a beautiful, nice gift I've got for you."
"You've cut off your hair?" asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
"Cut it off and sold it," said Della. "Don't you like me just as well, anyhow? I'm me without my hair, ain't I?"
Jim looked about the room curiously.
"You say your hair is gone?" he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
"You needn't look for it," said Della. "It's sold, I tell you--sold and gone, too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered," she went on with sudden serious sweetness, "but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?"
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year--what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
"Don't make any mistake, Dell," he said, "about me. I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first."
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Combs--the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims--just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: "My hair grows so fast, Jim!"
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, "Oh, oh!"
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
"Isn't it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You'll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it."
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
"Dell," said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on."
The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
The Gift Of The Magi
William Sydney Porter (O. Henry)
source: http://www.online-literature.com
Dream Maker
About a teenage boy who dreams. His are dreams are real and his dreams could decide the future.
I always have this weird dream as if it were real and not a dream. I asked my father once about the dream and he said it was just a dream. I asked my mother what she thought they were and she told me that it was when you are taking away from this world and you are placed
I confined in my mother I trusted her the most. My ma didn’t grow old and wrinkled like most mothers she didn’t get warts or anthracites when they became fragile and old. My mother was also young careful and beautiful. Even as I matured my mother seemed unaffected of the years that passed.
Everyone in their life must some time in their life to dream of riches beyond their imagination. For my life I did have those riches so I didn’t ever dream of such things. When I dreamt it was if it were real and I would awake drenched in sweat.
My father merely had anytime for me as I grew up so I had the affectionate love of only one parent. My mother would say that my father did love me but her eyes said otherwise. I even heard the servants saying my father envied me because my mother loved me and she didn’t love my father.
By Noreko Purcell
Published: 9/27/2007
A Large Hurdle, A Long Road
I first saw her in Spanish 3 in my junior year of high school. It was love at first sight. Custom dictated that it be love from afar, an unrequited love. Why? Her name was Margaret Donohue and mine is Marvin Goldstein. I had never gone out with a non-Jewish girl and my parents would kill me if I did. I had an uncle who'd married a Protestant in 1940 and the whole family was still talking about it. It was a "shunde" an embarrassment and shameful. This was 1962, but little had changed.
The teacher made a seating chart and I sat in the last seat in row two. Margaret, or Maggie, sat in the last seat in row one. It turned out that neither of us was as interested in Spanish as in joking and laughing. Often the teacher would raise her voice and point to the back of the room. "Marv and Maggie, pay attention." Marv and Maggie became a pair. When I got my driver's license, the first thing I did was borrow the car and go to Maggie's house. Her parents were both at work so we took a walk. Later we sat in her backyard, enjoying a beautiful day of Indian summer and she kissed me. I was excited by her brazen behavior, but quickly adjusted and kissed her back.
We began to date secretly. I would tell my parents I was going out with the guys and she'd tell hers she was going out with the girls. One night, bringing her home, her mother caught us. "Why are you sneaking around?" she asked her daughter sharply. "Isn't this young man good enough for me to meet? Or aren't I good enough?" The three of us went into the house and Mrs. Donohue explained she had no problem with Maggie dating me, after all we were just sixteen. It wasn't like we were going to get married some day. She did, however, object to the sneaking. The bottom line: Maggie and I could date as long as my parents knew about it.
The next night I told them about Maggie. Not unexpectedly, they were appalled and outraged. A Catholic! After what Christians had done to our people! Where did we go wrong? they asked each other. My father laid down the law: no Irish Catholic sluts for me. He took my car keys and went to his room in a rage, returning after a few moments to punch me in the face. My mother reminded me that he'd had a heart attack two years earlier and I must never mention the Catholic again.
I continued to date Maggie, double dating, going places after school, she using her parents' car. I had followed Mrs. Donohue's orders. My parents knew. They knew I was betraying my faith, my people, my family. I was single-handedly destroying Judaism. They more they ranted, the more enamored of Maggie I became. We loved to walk in the rain and hold hands. We loved to sing to each other. We liked to go for long drives talking about the meaning of life. One night in our senior year, I brought Maggie home unannounced. My parents were watching "Ben Casey." "Hi, Mom. Hi Dad. This is Maggie." My father made a choking sound and left the room. My mother remained, nodded to Maggie, and continued to watch "Ben Casey," though I suspect she really couldn't concentrate. We left after seven or eight minutes. After that, life at home became unbearable. I spent more and more time with Maggie. I wanted to marry her when graduation was over. Maggie, however, wanted to be a nurse, a three-year process. She went into training and I started college. Both of us continued to live at home. We began to have sex at her house or mine when our parents were working.
One day Maggie told me she was pregnant. I was scared, but proud. We went to another state where a couple could be married without a blood test or waiting period. They also didn't check ages very closely. Maggie and I were both 19, but we passed for 21 with no problem. Our next hurdle was to tell our parents. That I was not looking forward to! It turned out that I didn't have to tell them right away. Three days after we were married, Maggie got her period. She hadn't been pregnant after all. It didn't matter to me because I loved Maggie and I wanted her to be my wife. We decided to keep our marriage a secret for another year, until she had finished nursing school. I dropped out of college, got a job and started saving money. We wanted our own place when announced our marriage. Our parents would probably kick us out anyway.
One evening when Maggie and I were making love in my bed, my parents came home. My mother came up the stairs calling, "Marv, what are you doing home already? I thought. . . ." She opened my bedroom door and there we were. Naked and in bed. My mother's shoulders sagged. "Get dressed and come downstairs," she ordered weakly. By the time we came down, my father had been told and both sat glaring at us. "How could you do this in your mother's house?" my father asked with venom dripping from his tongue. My mother held his arm, I guess so he wouldn't hit me. "It's not what it looks like," I began. "Oh, it's not?" Mom said sarcastically. "Mom," I explained, "Maggie and I are married. We've been married for five months."
"When is the baby coming?" my father asked, cold fury on his face and in his voice. "She's not pregnant," I said defensively. "We're in love."
"Love," my father retorted in a loud voice. "What do you know about love? You just want to get into her pants. And you, young lady, there are names for girls like you." Maggie bristled and fought back tears. "Yes," she said, "Mrs. Goldstein." My father was taken aback and was silent for a few seconds. Then he began to laugh. My mother looked at him with astonishment. She began to speak. "When my brother married a Methodist," she began, "my parents sat Shiva for him. They tore their clothes and went into morning for their dead son. Three weeks later they changed their minds and invited him and his wife to dinner, hugging her and welcoming her to the family. But she never forgave them for first rejecting her. I am not going to make the same mistake." She held her arms open and beckoned to Maggie. "Welcome to the family, Maggie," she said. Maggie went across the room and allowed herself to be hugged. Eventually even my father called her "my beautiful daughter-in-law." What neither of them knew was that by that night it was already too late. Maggie never forgave them.
Maggie could not tell her parents she was married because she feared they wouldn't finish paying for her training, which had about six months to go. We did, however, tell them that we were engaged. By this time, her mother liked me a lot and her father had accepted the inevitable. A wedding was planned for a few weeks after Maggie became a registered nurse. My parents dictated that the wedding had to be Jewish with a rabbi, the canopy, the broken glass and all the other Jewish symbols. Maggie refused to convert, but she agreed to raise the children Jewish and happily gave up the Catholic Church. She considered herself an atheist and had since she'd been 12 or 13. She had kept up some practices for the sake of her parents, but even they had known her heart wasn't in it.
Our first child was born in Tennessee in 1968 and after I got out of the Navy and went back to college, we had a second. Life was tough with two babies, school and a part-time job. It was even tougher for Maggie, who worked the night shift, eleven to seven, so I could be with the kids. By day, she had the usual household chores and child rearing to do. She was always tired and I didn't feel the children got the attention they needed. Josh was adorable at three, with curly blond hair and insightful conversation. Rachel, at one, was my princess. When I came in at night, after work, it hurt me to see them dirty, playing in a dirty living room. It seemed to me that Maggie loved her cat more than the kids. I know that's ridiculous, but her offhand manner of mothering was so different from what I'd had growing up. "It's all I can do to keep up with the laundry," Maggie yelled when I complained. She wanted me to quit college and get a full-time job so we could have a normal life. I wanted to be something, for her, for the kids, but especially for me. I stayed in college and even went to graduate school, which infuriated Maggie. I majored in business and got an M.B.A. and upon graduation, I got a very good job with a well-respected brokerage. My starting salary was twice what she made as nurse. I thought she would be proud of me. Now she could stop working and be a full-time homemaker.
Soon we'd buy a house. Josh and Rachel were in school now: second grade and kindergarten. Maggie wanted to continue working. "What would I do here all day by myself?" she asked rhetorically. Clean the house, I thought, getting some milk from the refrigerator that had yet to be cleaned. Some of the spills in it were older than Rachel. The kitchen floor was sticky and the bathtub had a permanent ring around it. "Clean it yourself, if it bothers you," Maggie told me when I complained. "We all just take showers, so what's the point?" We bought a new house in a new neighborhood and fenced the yard for the kids. I worked hard and late and Maggie changed to the day shift. She left an hour before I did, so it was up to me to get Josh and Rachel ready for school. I enjoyed dressing them and eating breakfast with them. On Sundays, I took them to the synagogue for religious school and we spent all the Jewish holidays at my parents' house. They adored the children and showered them with love and gifts. They were also very generous with Maggie and me. They sent us on vacations and kept the kids, they bought us furniture when we bought our house. They had even chipped in for the down payment. All this generosity annoyed Maggie. She wanted to be independent. Although she kept her promise about the raising the children Jewish, it was obvious that her heart was not in it. Less and less did she accompany me to the synagogue. She found excuses not to go to my parents' house for Hanukkah or even her parents' house for Christmas. She didn't just not believe in God anymore. She was hostile to everything related to religion.
I loved Maggie and wanted to enjoy the fruits of our labor, but Maggie became more and more distant. Our sex life deteriorated and in 1988, when we were both 43 and Rachel graduated from high school, Maggie asked me to move to the guest room. I was so hurt, I moved without a word. I didn't tell anyone and I didn't complain to Maggie. In my mind I decided to give her one year. So I stayed in the guest room for one year, unless Josh and Rachel were home from college for brief periods. I didn't want them to know what was going on and at those times, Maggie and I slept stiffly on opposite sides of our king size bed. We didn't eat together. We talked only of the most mundane things: Did you pay the water bill? When is Rachel's tuition due? Is it time to change the oil in your car? Maggie showed little emotion during this time. When her beloved cat died, she took it stoically. I offered to get her another, but she refused. "Too much trouble," she said. I suppose now that Maggie was depressed, but I knew little about depression at the time. As a stock broker, I didn't even want to say the word!
At the end of a year, I asked Maggie if she wanted to be married to me. "I don't care," she responded. "Do you want a divorce?" I asked. "That would make your parents happy," she replied. "They've always hated me." I tried to explain to her that they didn't hate her. They were just scared about me losing my commitment to Judaism. She didn't buy it. She never had. We looked at each other across the kitchen table. What had happened to the giggling girl I'd stat next to in Spanish class? She was still beautiful and I still loved her, but she had no place in her heart for me. We decided to get a divorce right after Josh graduated from college in 1990, seven months away.
I spent much time reflecting on my love affair with Maggie and our marriage. We'd been married over 25 years and had two great kids. For most of that time I had loved her and been happy. What went wrong? I had asked Maggie repeatedly, but she just shook her head. "Mixed marriage," my mother said sadly. "It was bound to happen." I couldn't believe religion had anything to do with it after all this time, I told her. She just gave me a knowing look and shrugged. "What is it they say these days?" my mother went on. "You just had different values." "You worked too much and helped too little," a cousin told me. My best friend guessed Maggie was frigid. Ah, definitely not so, I thought, remembering the passion that had lasted for so long. "The kids grew up and you grew apart," my secretary offered. "Happens all the time." But I knew that we had begun to grow apart long before the kids grew up.
So, what happened? Maggie remarried two years ago after receiving a large settlement from me. Her new husband is Jewish, a retired CPA (although only 55, one year older than Maggie) and a self-made millionaire. Maggie tells the kids she's truly happy for the first time in her life. She says he appreciates her. I'm sure he does. She's still beautiful and looks 40 rather than 54.
And me? I dated a fair number of women after the divorce. I enjoyed it for a time, but then began to hunger for family life again. In 1993 I met a beautiful Jewish widow eight years younger than myself. We fell in love and got married. I adore Susan. We not only share the same values, but we enjoy the same pastimes. She's a great mother to her girls and also to Josh and Rachel when they're here.
Maggie and talk on the phone about Josh and Rachel, the wedding, their educations, Rachel's relationship with Alan, etc. Susan gets jealous when I talk to Maggie. I also do business with Maggie. She supplies the brokerage with fresh flower arrangements every Monday morning, and does all the flowers for special occasions, though now she is thinking of selling the business and doing some traveling with number two. On the whole, we have a pretty cordial relationship, though from time to time, Maggie strikes out at me. I'm always surprised. I still don't know what caused our love affair to burn out. I still don't know why she asked me to leave her bed. I loved her. I worked hard for my family. I was never unfaithful, didn't drink or abuse her. It's true I wasn't much good around the house. However, this is something that doesn't even phase Susan, so why would it have bothered Maggie so much? Was it religion, or lack thereof? I don't know. Is this a sad love story? I guess so.
Did I destroy Judaism? I ask myself now. If asked their religion, Josh and Rachel will say Jewish, but are they practicing Jews? No. Will their children be Jewish? I doubt it. Does this make me sad? Very. Should I have married Maggie? I wouldn't have Josh and Rachel if I hadn't. Did we negotiate our differences? you ask. I don't think we ever knew what our differences were. In an attempt to ignore the differences which were so important to our families, we overlooked all differences. We thought love was all that mattered. I suppose that makes this a pretty common "love" story.
