Young Love Doesn't Need to Grow Old

We had been hanging like that for about three months. Then, after watching Bonnie and Clyde, we walked to my beat-up old Mercury and she seemed upset. We got in the car and just sat and talked. The ending of the movie really bothered and depressed her."

"That was a violent ending, for sure," Bill recalled.

"Yeah. And it rattled Cynthia's sensitivities.

The Merc had a bench seat, so as we talked sitting there parked, I pulled her to me and hugged her for a minute. She was feeling better after we talked, then she looked up at me to thank me and our eyes met. I remember the look in her eyes so well. It was if she drilled right into my innermost thoughts and feelings. That turned into our first, tender kiss."

"That's so sweet," Pat let a tear fall emphasizing her reaction.

"Then Cynthia and I looked at each other, and broke out laughing."

"Why?" Pat asked as her emotions seemed to turn on a dime.

"It seems it was something we had both fighting off for a while. I admitted I wanted to kiss her as soon as she broke up with Darnel. She said she wanted to kiss me even before that. It took us three months to finally admit there was something between us."

Bill asked the question it seemed was on the group's collective mind. "How did your family react to you getting serious with a black girl?"

"Both families had real concerns. And, maybe that's understating it. You all experienced the tensions of the late '60s and early '70s. My mom and dad were really upset. Not having been around black people growing up, I wasn't aware that my folks were as prejudiced as much as they were. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't say they were racists—they just were not comfortable around people not like them. I think we're all that way a bit. My mom kept trying to quote scripture about being unequally yoked and tried to apply that to ethnic background. I even had my home church pastor talk to them that the reference applied to someone marrying someone else from a different faith, not different tribes or ethnicity."

"You said, both families," Bill mentioned with a swig of brew.

"Yeah. Cynthia's dad, William, was a great guy. He was a lawyer and had an office not too far from Temple. Cynthia was an only child, but her cousins and grandparents were all very close and protective of her. Her mom couldn't stand me. I overheard some nasty comments from her directed at me, although she tried to be civil to my face. It was clear she didn't want her only baby tied up to a white guy."

"Ouch!" Joanne exclaimed.

"Her dad was friendly, but I could tell he had concerns. I could see the lawyer in him debating both sides of the issue. When it was clear we were dating and getting serious, he asked me to come to his office on a day I only had morning classes, and he'd buy me lunch."

"Did you take a change of underwear, just in case?" Ken joked.

Joanne smacked him. "Ken, that's awful."

The others thought it was extremely funny.

"No, but maybe I should have. I opened his office door, he invited me in and closed the door behind me, turned, and said in a rather challenging voice, 'Greg, what do you see when you look at me?' I was confused, so I simply asked, 'What?' He repeated, 'What do you see?' Having always been the type to avoid conflict usually with humor, I remember my response exactly. 'I see a very frightening father who is extremely protective of his daughter and could break me in half if he wanted to.'

The big man laughed a little giving up his stern demeanor for a moment, then pointedly asked, 'Don't you see a big black father who could break you in half?' I saw where he was going, so I answered. 'I told you what I saw. Yes, you're black, but what's that got to do with anything?' He smirked and I couldn't tell if he was humored or upset, but then he regained his courtroom persona and asked another question. 'What do you want with Cynthia? Are you looking to screw her and score some dark meat?' Well, that upset me—a lot."

Pat broke the tension. "What was he trying to do, pick a fight?"

"Absolutely. He wanted to cut through the crap to see how I responded. I told him his question really pissed me off. I stood before him looking stronger than I felt and met his eyes with mine to be sure he understood the depth of my response. My exact words challenged him. I said, 'Don't you ever talk about me or Cynthia that way!' I told him point-blank that I loved Cynthia more than life itself, and I would never do anything to her that would devalue, dishonor, hurt her, or jeopardize her wellbeing. I told him that Cynthia and I would never be intimate unless we were married, and on our wedding night and beyond we'd be making love, not screwing."

"Was that when he beat you to a pulp?" Ken laughed. He was definitely the joker in the group.

"No, he softened and told me he believed me. We went to lunch and he tried to describe the rough road we would have before us. He basically admitted his family would be tough to navigate, but he thought I was a good man. I had to admit that some of the things he said I had not considered. But I was confident Cynthia and I could handle it together. After lunch, he actually hugged me, and said he'd do what he could to support Cynthia and me."

"So were things smooth after that?" Joanne asked.

"No, I wished they were. My parents weren't making things easy, but I could have dealt with that. My mom gave me lots of lectures, although she remained calm and friendly whenever Cyn was with me. She didn't dislike Cynthia, but she was scared about the things I'd face if I chose a wife outside of, as she said it, 'our race.' We had a big argument about that. I told her that Cyn and are were both members of the same race—humans. We were the same species. If we weren't, breeding would be impossible. If God allowed us to make children, I saw no issue."

Gloria was smiling. "Good answer, Greg."

"Thanks, Gloria. That may be, but I never sold Mom on the concept even when my home minister agreed."

Bill helped me segue into the difficult part of the story. "What about Cynthia's family?"

"Cynthia's family really put us through the wringer. At one holiday party, one of her cousins asked if the white boy could be his slave and get him a drink. Cynthia blew up at him and her father told him to leave, which he did. William took a lot of grief for kicking a family member out of the house to support me. Cynthia's grandmother, her mom's mother, said right to my face that I wasn't welcomed at her house for a family gathering that was planned. She capped it off by saying that no matter what happened, I would never be family."

"That was harsh," Gloria surmised.

"Other than her dad, Cynthia's family attacked as if a battle plan had been put together and was in full motion. It had the effect they wanted."

"Oh, no." Joanne and Gloria exclaimed almost in unison.

"I stopped to pick Cynthia up on a Monday. She didn't come out so I went up to the house and her mom answered the door. 'She's already gone to school and she don't want nothin' to do with you.' I remember the words as if she said them this morning. We didn't have any classes together that semester, so I didn't see her at school. I called her that night and her mom wouldn't let me talk to her. She called me after her mom went to bed."

I started choking up a bit at the memory. Pat touched my arm for comfort and I continued.

"She said she loved me but couldn't fight her whole family. She had to stop seeing me. She cried and I balled like a baby, but nothing I said made a difference."

Gloria tried to bring the perspective of the times. "That whole scenario would have been hard to deal with in the best of times, but racial tensions then were extremely high. Could you understand her struggle?"

"Sure I did, but Cynthia and I talked, planned, dreamed of marriage and kids. We wanted a family, and I knew we were in real, solid, true, heartfelt love. I had to honor her request and it tore me up. If I saw her on campus, I fell to pieces. If she saw me, she ran in the opposite direction. There was only a week left in the semester, so at least I had a month break coming. But I was a mess.

I went to her father's office unannounced and he welcomed me with open arms. I felt like a fool. I saw him, hugged him, and I burst into tears. He managed to calm me down and we had a great talk, but it was clear the fight was over. After a while, I realized what I had to do. I told him that I loved Cynthia more than life itself, and because of that I had to put her welfare first and let her go."

Gloria wiped tears from her eyes. "You knew then what love really is."

"Yeah, Gloria. I knew. I took on the pain to spare her relationship with her family."

Ken seemed emotional when he asked, "Did her dad appreciate what you had to do?"

"Yeah. He gave me a big hug as I prepared to leave right after saying that. As we parted, I remember I had to tell him something else on my heart. I said, 'William, you are a great dad to Cynthia, and I feel like you've been a great dad to me too.' He actually teared up a bit, and told me he would have been proud to have me as a son."

"He really sounds like he was a great guy." Bill seemed especially touched at that moment.

"He was. He was one of the greatest men I have ever had the joy of knowing."

"Bless his heart," Gloria emoted.

"That started me on a massive spiral downward. I realized that if I truly loved her, which I did, I had to honor her wishes. So I wouldn't keep running into Cyn, I transferred to West Chester State and finished my degree. I dated some other girls, or at least I tried, but I never came close to finding the chemistry I had with Cynthia. I graduated and started teaching at a high school in Chester County. I directed the choir at a local church and got involved with some outreach ministries. I had a roommate after I graduated, but he moved out of the area a year later and I was totally alone. Frankly, I was alone even when he lived there. To make matters worse, I ran into an old acquaintance from Temple who told me Cynthia had married Darnel, and that sent me into a deep depression."

"So when did you meet your wife?" Ken asked with a bit of confusion and impatience.

"I'm getting there. It was seven years after I graduated, nine years after Cynthia and I parted. The few women I dated went nowhere. Most of the time it was one date and done. I was, for the most part, totally alone and desperately depressed.

In the fall of 1981, a friend at church introduced me to a lovely woman my age, Donna. She was a girl-next-door type with the most pleasant personality. We became friends and had some nice platonic outings, but after almost two months I hadn't even kissed her. The week before Christmas I sat in the King of Prussia Mall and watched happy families wander about preparing for a wonderful holiday, and I felt almost like they were mocking my loneliness. I closed my eyes and put my head back to avoid a public crying episode. I dwelled on Cynthia and decided I'd die a lonely man if I didn't move on. I considered Donna and concluded that she may be the one to save me from a solitary, depressing life. Then I heard the sweetest sound ever to reach my ears."

I paused, somewhat for dramatic effect, but more because it touched me every time I thought about it.

"What?" Ken asked impatiently.

"I heard a sweet voice softly call my name."

*****

"Greg, I'm home." Just then my wife returned home from my daughters.

"Hi Honey, I was just getting to the good part. Do you want to finish?"

"Folks, I'd like you to meet my wife, Cynthia."

The group suddenly got it. Pat was the only one who had noticed my wife was a beautiful black woman, so she anticipated the ending. After everyone greeted her, I let Cyn finish the story.

"So, I called his name, he looked at me, and passed out!"

"Wow," Bill exclaimed. "Out cold?"

"Yep," Cyn continued. "He hit his head on the planter next to the bench when he went down. The paramedics took him, and my son and I went with him to the hospital to be sure he was okay."

"So, wait a minute," Ken interjected realizing he missed an important detail. "You're Cynthia. What happened to Donna?"

"Nothing. We never got to the point of dating," I answered.

Cyn continued. "So, anyway, at the hospital when he came to, after ascertaining he was going to be okay and, yes, it was really me—he asked about Darnel. I told him Darnel had left me a year after our son, Aaron, was born. We hadn't seen him since, and Aaron had no memory of him. We caught up on the major events in our lives since we last saw each other. After two hours of talking and holding hands, he got very serious and pulled my chin so we were looking into each other's eyes. Then he asked me three questions. Greg, do you want to tell them?"

"Sure, Honey. I asked her, in every way—are you still the same girl I knew at Temple?"

"I told him I was, only older and stronger."

"Then I asked, do you still love me?"

"I told him I never stopped. If anything, I loved him even more."

"Then I asked her the big question. Would you marry me?"

The entire group had tears in their eyes.

"Three weeks later, we were married at his church."

I kissed Cyn passionately as we recalled that day.

"And that, my friends, has led to 38 years of complete, marital bliss."