Soul mates: Do they really exist?

Yes

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by Beverly Donner

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My Forever Soul Mate

I am living proof that soul mates exist because I've been with my own most of my life. He came into the world same month and year that I was born. It was destiny waiting to happen, or you might say a "marriage made in heaven." Our soulful connection was already in force long before we ever met or were aware of each other.

I first became aware of my other half in Mr. Holsey's 7th grade math class. JD was big for his age and looked more like a 15 year old than 12. He had a cute smile and dimples. When he would smile at me and say, "hello, Beverly" I'd nearly melt. Typical crush? One would think so, but my gut feelings ran so much deeper than a mere crush and were beyond my understanding. I actually felt some kind of indescribable connection to this boy. It was like I already knew him even though the most we ever spoke was "hello" when we passed in the hall. We always acknowledged each other with a passing "hello" although that wasn't normal behavior among students unless you were good friends, and we barely knew each other. Our hearts seemed to already accept what our minds didn't yet comprehend. I knew he was a kind-hearted person, as I had often observed him behaving in a friendly, protective way towards the underdog type of boys that were normally picked on and made fun of. JD treated them like normal human beings, worthy of acceptance and respect, and with him setting the tone, others followed. He wasn't afraid to stand up to bullies even if it risked his own popularity. He was known and respected by the other boys for being true to himself and standing proud and the side of right even at the risk of ridicule.

I would turn through the pages of my yearbook the following summer between school years and when I would stumble across his picture, I would feel my face turning red with a sense that somehow, some way, this boy was going to play a major role in my life, and possibly even be my husband. But how could that be? There wasn't a lot of mixing between boys and girls at school in our junior high. We didn't attend the same church or share in other activities together, we didn't seem to even know the same people. I'd then shut the book, shrug and say, "Naaah."

JD and I continued to have occasional class together in junior high, and I can remember actually feeling embarrassed when he did something dumb like falling asleep in class, a sensation that this was somehow a reflection on me. There was always this sense of awareness and connectivity. Sometimes, when I was out somewhere, I would actually feel his presence, only to look up and there he'd be with some of his friends. Our eyes would meet momentarily and we'd nod to each other and go on our separate ways. Somehow, I knew deep inside that he also had this same feeling about me, that we were connected in a way that neither of us understood but were both aware of.

We both started high school in 10th grade, and after that I didn't see JD much anymore. I had began to date, and my dates were always older than me and already out of school. Now and then I'd open up that junior high school yearbook and see JD's picture, and that feeling would nearly knock me out, it was still there, but more than ever, I could not see how anything would ever materialize between JD and myself. There just was no way we were ever going to get together.

Most of high school was pretty much non-existent for me. My mother had just finished a series of radiation treatments for uterine cancer was still not feeling well most of the time. I often heard from the adults in my life that she probably didn't have long to live. My parents were divorced, and she was the only parent really involved in my life, and I was frankly scared. In addition to the constant stress of worry about my mom, I was also not well for a large portion of my high school years, with asthma turning to bronchitis and bronchitis turning to pneumonia. I would just start to get my strength back and would over-exert myself and become flat on my back, sick in bed again. Having missed so much school and being so far behind in all my studies, I became more and more alienated by people my own age and continued to date and hang out with people older than myself. On the good days when I tried to go to school, I would feel like such a misfit that I'd just turn and walk off campus before the day was over. Games and proms were definitely not a part of my teen curriculum.

When I had just turned 17, my mother found a lump in her breast. . .more cancer. There was a very good chance that she may not live much longer. My father entered back into my life and volunteered to put me through beauty college. So, during what should have been my senior year of high school, I was learning a trade that was supposed to help me make a living to support myself and my two younger sisters in case my mother didn't make it. One year after my mother's mastectomy, she went into a coma and never came back out of it. I started my first job as a hair stylist the day after my mother's funeral. I had a lot on my plate, but apparently, not enough. A man came around waving papers at me and told me that I was far enough behind on my house payments that foreclosure was applicable. House payments? I had never made a house payment or even paid an electric bill, and now my sisters and I were going to be without a home? The "kind gentleman" said that until I could either make up the back payments or find another place to live, he would graciously accept rent from me. He showed up on my doorstep every two weeks to collect rent, which at the time was more than I was even able to earn.

I found a low-rent, one bedroom furnished apartment and my sisters and I packed everything we could into the Volks Wagon on loan to me from my father, making several trips back and forth until we felt we had enough supplies to set up housekeeping in the apartment. We left behind TV's, furniture, a washer and dryer and basically anything we couldn't pack into that tiny VW bug. A friend of my mother's told me that Mom would have wanted the church to have her piano and I said great, take it. Another friend said that Mom would have wanted her to have her sewing machine, and I said wonderful, it's yours. I knew I was leaving a big mess for someone, but in my nave, not yet fully adult mind, I thought that the things I was leaving behind could be sold and perhaps make up for some of the money owed on that house. No one ever came after me looking for any money or to complain about the things I left in the house, so I was probably somewhat right about that, and I'm sure that the foreclosure people were just glad we had left and they didn't have to take any drastic measures to get us out of there.

As though scripted by a higher source, the little one bedroom apartment I moved us into just happened to be right around the corner from where JD lived with his parents. As fate would have it, he started coming around and asking me out. I was just 18 and didn't feel at all ready for marriage or even a serious commitment in my life, and I knew that if I started seeing JD, there would be no turning back. I threw caution to the wind, and we fell in love fast and furiously. It all just seemed so right, not to mention prophetic.

After three months of dating, the world came crashing down. JD had been drafted to go and fight in Viet Nam. His doctor was supposed to provide medical documentation that gouty arthritis would make JD unable to carry out military duties, but the doctor failed to send the letter, and my beloved JD now belonged to Uncle Sam. As if this news wasn't enough to bear, JD broke up with me saying that it wouldn't be right for him to have a girlfriend or a wife only to go overseas and be killed. I tried to reason with him. I suggested that maybe we could move to Canada like some draft deserters were doing. He took umbrage with that and said that his country had always been pretty good to him and now he needed to do something for his country. "What did your country do for you?" I would rage, "Allow you to graduate from high school and live to be 18?" I argued that it would be better for him to have a girlfriend or wife waiting at home, as he would know that he was loved, and even if he was killed, I would, of course, be very sad, but I would still be young enough to eventually find love again. Sadly, he wasn't having it, and he refused to see me anymore. In the days before he left, would see him sometimes out with his friends and sometimes with other girls. Sure, I would seethe to myself, they're okay, but I'm poison. Before going off to boot camp, JD asked if I would write to him, not as a girlfriend, but as a friend. I agreed to write him and finally started dating other guys. So that was that, I told myself. That was the role JD was going to play in my life, he was going to be the one who got away.

Three months into boot camp, JD was sent home on a medical, honorable discharge. All the marching, maneuvers and training had wreaked havoc on his gouty arthritis and his knees swelled to the point that he couldn't even pull his pants up over them. Although he was glad to be going home, he was also filled with guilt as many of his friends were being sent overseas. He lost two friends in Viet Nam and has never gotten over the sadness and loss of young lives to a war that our generation didn't even believe in.

The inevitable happened, and JD and I picked up where we left off. We were married six months after he came home and have been happy and in love ever since. Our wedding day memory is also marred with sadness, however, as I was to learn that on the very day I was marrying the love of my life, my cousin Bucky was killed in Viet Nam. Bucky, two years older than I, would never have the chance to find love and happiness. I almost felt guilty at being so happy and crazy in love when people my own age may not have the same chance in life.

There are two incidents during the early days of our marriage that stand out in my mind so vividly that they could have happened yesterday. One is of JD and I, newly married, driving the "cruise" for teens and young people. When we did this, JD would always be honking in recognition of a friend, or driving side by side with someone talking out of car windows. On this particular night, JD and his friend Mike were driving side by side, talking back and forth as they had done many times. JD told Mike that we had just gotten married. Mike told him that he was just home on leave and got to see his newborn son for the first time. The two of them laughed, congratulated each other and we went on our way. Shortly after that, Mike came home in a box, leaving behind his teenaged wife and tiny baby boy.

Another of JD's friends decided to get married before being sent overseas. He sent his fiance to me to have her hair styled for the wedding. She brought her wedding veil with her so that I could work around it and make sure that if fit attractively around her hair style. Little did I know that the next time I would see her would be only a couple of weeks later when she came by to ask JD to be pallbearer at her beloved's funeral. Another young life lost to a no-win war.

Although there have been trials and sadness in our lives, including the two bouts of cancer that I have survived, and JD's now nearly crippling arthritis, we are still as much in love as ever, and we are also best friends. We often talk about those days in school, and yes, he felt that same connectivity. He says that even though he felt too young for marriage, and was consumed with worry about the draft, he felt strongly compelled to ask me out. He also knew that if we began seeing each other, there would be no turning back. He never shared this with me until after we were married, but even though he wouldn't let me be his girlfriend while he was in the Army, he did make me his beneficiary should he be killed in combat. Even facing possible death, he still wanted to make sure I was taken care of. Now, that's true love!

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