We Planned to See the World Together — Years Later, Someone Unexpected Met Me Instead
When I was seventeen, Lucy was the first person I ever loved. We shared dreams under school bleachers, whispering plans about all the places we’d see when we were grown. Before we parted ways, we made a promise — that if life scattered us, we’d meet again at sixty-five, on a quiet park bench beneath two old trees.
The years unfolded as they do — college, marriage, children, loss, and laughter. I carried Lucy’s memory like a folded letter, tucked but never forgotten. When sixty-five finally came, I returned to that park feeling like the boy I once was — nervous, hopeful, and unsure of what time might have left for us.
But when I reached the bench, it wasn’t Lucy waiting there. It was a man — Arthur, her husband. He smiled kindly and said Lucy wouldn’t be coming, that some promises were better left in the past. I nodded, but before either of us could say more, I saw her — rushing toward us, wind in her hair, eyes filled with years. She came not to rekindle something lost, but to honor something that had shaped us both.
We sat for coffee, the three of us, letting nostalgia fill the spaces between conversation. I realized then that some loves don’t return to be relived — they return to remind us who we used to be.