Love is a Journey

Jenna was a calm spirited girl. Her eyes were golden brown, filled with the tears of her past trauma and heartache. Her thoughts and feelings were fueled by the disappointment and trauma of those who she loved dearly, but had not returned that same love to her. Her curly rose gold hair fell to her shoulders like a calming ripple in a beautiful lake on a windy day in the Fall. She searched for purpose and searched for the love that she knew she deserved. She looked for love in all the wrong places and believed truly that she was broken and would never find someone who genuinely loved her. She decided that maybe the years of abuse that haunted her would disappear if she moved as far from the city where it happened.

She quickly took advantage of the beach being so close to her new home, 850 miles away from her hometown and found that it was her new place of solitude. There was a certain calming effect the crashing waves had on her, the feeling of the warm sand on her toes, and the beauty that she never knew she was missing. The sun hitting her rose gold hair, the mist of the salty ocean water gently coating her face and the feeling of the cool water rushing over her feet put her mind and body at ease. Standing at the ocean’s edge she felt something hit her foot. At first, she thought it was a piece of debris from the ocean, but she bent down to get a closer look, and much to her surprise, it was a little black book.

She reached down swiftly and grabbed the book. Just as she stood up after retrieving the book, her cell phone rang. Shaking the book off, she refocused her attention to her phone. She looked to see who was calling and it was her sister. She sat there for a few minutes talking to her sister. Her sister was her best friend. Every time she needed a familiar voice, an opinion without judgement, or a shoulder to cry on, her sister was there. She headed in the direction of home. For the next few days, she stayed home, enjoying the peace she never knew she could have. One night, she had a dream. In her dream she was walking along the beach. She was walking along the beach and saw a woman, sitting on a blanket, clenching something to her chest, crying. Jenna had always had such a sensitive heart when it came to others. Something inside Jenna wanted so badly to console this stranger, but something stronger inside of her gravitated toward the object that the woman was clenching over her Heart. As she focused in, she saw that the woman was clenching a little black book to her chest. Without wanting to disturb the woman, Jenna continued her walk down the beach. As she got closer to the ocean, as soon as the mist hit her face in her dream, she woke up.

As soon as she woke up, her dream, which was so very real, reminded her of the black book she found at the ocean just a few days before! With a sudden sense of urgency, Jenna jumped up, grabbed her keys and ran to her car. Somehow, the little black book she had forgotten just a few days earlier in the front seat of her car, had been remembered. Being that the book had been on her front seat for a few days, it had dried out and the pages were no longer sticking together. Jenna brought the book inside and sat down. As she sat down, flipped the cover open, she saw the following written:

To my beautiful Grace,

My love for you is a journey, starting at forever.

Love Always,

Thomas

Jenna hadn’t realized, but as she finished reading the writing, a tear dropped on the page, and she quickly wiped it off. She spent the next hour, which seemed like a lifetime, flipping thru the laminated pages of the little black book, studying every single picture, minutes focusing on each page, as each page had a date stamp, words of love and encouragement, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, childbirths, love letters, postcards, and even a few pages had dried flowers sealed safely under the protective film. Much to her surprise, despite the book being in the water, not many pages were damaged. One photo that caught her eye was a photo of a man, standing with his hand extended to his side like he was holding onto something, but it was only half of a picture. Jenna thought maybe somehow that picture had been damaged by the water so proceeded thru the rest of the pages. As Jenna neared the end of the little black book, in her heart she wanted it to go on forever, but knew that at some point, it would run out of pages. She got to the very last page, she saw handwriting, but not the same handwriting as she had saw on the first page. The writing she saw on the very last page said:

To my dearest Thomas,

I sit here today, looking over our life’s greatest accomplishments, and wonder how I will ever be able to live without you. You left before our album was complete, but I wanted you to know, I made it safely back to the place we met and will continue to come here until I take my last breath because this is where I feel closest to you. Our journey together ended before we wanted, but I will still journey with you in my heart.

I miss you my love,

Grace

As before, when Jenna was reading the passage on the first page, tears were streaming down her face. Noticing a large smudge at the bottom of the page, a partial part of a heart that had once been drawn, Jenna immediately recognized the smudge, it appeared to be the size of a teardrop. She sat there in silence for a few minutes reflecting on the book’s contents. As she went to close the book, a photo dropped out. She picked up the photo, and it did not look like any of the photos she had already seen flipping through that book very carefully. She grasped the picture and screamed. Her heart pounding, her mind racing, she jumped to her feet! The picture she was holding in her hand was a picture of the woman at the beach that she saw in her dream! The picture was of the woman, clenching something to her chest! As Jenna looked closer at the photo, It was the little black book that she saw in her dream that she was holding in real life! She went to the bathroom to splash some water on her face. She walked back to the living room, and sat for hours, staring at the little black book. Jenna decided that since the little black book obviously belonged to someone who had been to the beach where she found it, she would do some research to see if she could find the family who lost it. The dates in the book were long before the day she found it so she feared that the family it belonged to may have passed on already. She posted the shortened version of what she found in the book on many community forums, desperately searching for the family who had lost it, because it was no question that they would want it back. Months went by, and Jenna decided to post a few of the non-intimate photos online in another attempt to find the little black book’s rightful owner hoping that maybe someone would recognize the pictures, the people in them, or the places. Jenna was careful not to post too many pictures online, as she wanted the actual owner or owner’s family to come forward. With every post, she included every way that someone could contact her to claim their little black book.

One morning, she woke up to an email. The email read, “Hi, Jenna! My name is Allison. You have no idea how long this email took me to send. I was sent one of your posts from the community page, because someone recognized a picture in that little black book you found. It was the half of picture. The picture of the man, with his hand extended out like he was holding something, I have the other half of the picture. That picture was the last picture that my Mother took of me and my Father before he was sent to war, where he never came home, he was holding my hand. My Mom and I frequented that beach after my Dad had passed away. Although we moved from that area years ago, we still visited that beach every year because it made us feel closer to my Dad. But on our last visit, before my Mom passed away, we got home and had realized that the book was not with us. It began to rain, and when we went back after the storm, the spot we had the book was completely wet as if the water had come up. We assumed that it had been washed away.” Jenna rushed to open the email attachment, she grabbed the book and began flipping thru it so fast to get to the half of picture, in fact, so fast, that she missed it and had to flip back. Much to her surprise, she held the photo up to the screen of her computer and could clearly see that this was in fact the other half to the picture she had seen in the book. A few minutes later, which seemed like an eternity, her phone rang. It was an unknown number. Rushing to answer, not to miss it, she greeted the caller. “Hello, this is Jenna!” The caller said “Hi, this is Allison, about the book, I am so happy you found it, I can’t talk long because I get pretty winded, but if you can drop off the book to me whenever you’d like, please leave it on the porch swing, here’s my address.” She hung up, hands shaking. She was so thrilled to be able to return such a sentimental piece of family history to Allison. She got to Allison’s and immediately admired the large Victorian style house in front of her, mostly white, with light blue shutters, a light blue door, and a wraparound porch. She saw the porch swing and gently placed the book on the swing and noticed an envelope with her name on it and picked it up. When Jenna got home, she opened the envelope and gently unfolded the letter inside, reading it very carefully.

Dear Jenna,

Thank you. Unfortunately, I am terminally ill and my Doctor says I don’t have much time. One thing I cherished most in life was the album of my parent’s love story that I thought was gone forever. So please take this as a thank you for the gift you gave me before I start on my journey to meet them in heaven.” Jenna with tears in her eyes, flipped the page over. Nothing. She looked around for a minute wondering what “thank you” Allison had referred to, she looked in the envelope again. She pulled out the item in the envelope and gasped. She began to cry. She sat down the item she got from the envelope on her table. It was a handwritten check made out to her in the amount of $20,000.