Eternal love

The ship stopped moving and I knew we had arrived at our destiny, Yokosuka (Japan) on the very same day of my the tenth birthday. Japan was the place where my father had been deployed, and was scheduled to remain for the next five years.

I felt miserable.

I was only ten but I already hated life. I had left my friends back home, they promised to write but as always happens with childhood friends, they all forgot about me as soon as the summer started and they were free to play until sunset.

When I got the news of my father's deployment, I cried and begged my parents to let me stay in Colorado with my grandparents, but mother said family must stay together but love wasn’t neither in my heart or head. I hated everything and everybody. Specially my family.

After arriving in Yokosuka, I spent the following weeks walking around town trying to like it, but everything seemed ugly and confusing.

But on a sunny afternoon, I got into a shop where I found strange looking sweets, they smelled nice so I got them, and on my way out, I saw a girl, same age as me. She had big glasses, too big for her face, pony tails, and braces and she gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen. I lost my heart then and there.

She held her hand out and, without taking my eyes off of her, I took it. She showed me her school, her house, taught me how to read the strange looking signs in the city, took me everywhere with her, and with her hand in mine I felt safe. We talked about everything and anything. Or. maybe we didn’t talk, I just remember looking at her and feeling like floating but we were walking. Or maybe we were really floating.

She didn’t tell me her name. Every time I asked her, she smiled and told me to meet her at the sweet shop every day to talk, hold hands and to eat sweets together

A few weeks later she told me her name, Megumi, which can be translated as blessing in English. And she certainly was. Since the day we met, we were inseparable, we spent every day together. But the day of my return to the States was getting closer and there was nothing we could do about it. Again, my destiny was out of my control.

On the day of my departure, she held me while I was sobbing like a baby instead of the 15 years old boy I was. She kept smiling and promised me to write. She said we would always be together.

Reluctantly, I left Japan thinking I would never come back. But on my 18th birthday, the bell rang, I opened the door expecting to see my grandparents. My heart skipped a beat.

It was Megumi holding her hand out, asking me to go for a walk. I took her hand and I haven't let go of it since.

We talked, cried, kissed and down the line, got married and had children. We have had a simple yet blissful life. We do not have billions in the bank, and we know we are not going to change the fate of the world. But we have been happy, we still are. And wish you to all of you to find your Megumi (blessing) in life.