Everybody Has An Angela

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ve probably heard me begin a statement with, “I’m not easily impressed, but……….” The births of my children, puppies, experiencing Sedona, finding a truly good ice cream shoppe, a Lake Erie storm, the friendly folk of Appalachia and poor people who continually give are but several examples. Yet, I doubt if anything is more impressive than the day we discover a new emotion called Love. Regardless where life takes us, we never shake that part of growing up. Few of us bond and stay together forever, while most move on and eventually find another person. Some of us will marry several times and a small percentage will remain single. As time passes, that magnificent “moment” becomes a bit foggy while we pursue what we feel will make us happy.

I wonder if Messrs. Rosenberg were aware of the fuse they would light while penning, “Stand Alone By Me”, the March 3rd installment of ABCs, “October Road.” Angela, the only girl in a tight circle of 6, moved away when they were all 10 years old. Eighteen years later, Angela’s death rekindled memories of how each of 5 boys loved her in his own special way.

We’ll find many loves, but none more significant or even magical than our first, as THAT love opened a new kind of door for our hearts. It’s the first time we could actually see into someone, well beyond the physical and into the soul. We were in awe of a mere presence…the world stopping for us and nobody else, in that microcosm of time…a time when absolutely nothing else mattered…our lives forever changed. Can you remember trying to understand that feeling…the futility of explaining any of it and the blissful, utopian confusion of it all? There WAS no way to understand or explain the euphoria. It just WAS! On that day, during that nanosecond, we bid good-bye to innocence and boarded the train to adulthood.

We will experience much in life. Occasionally, the mind will go back to recall how special a time it was because it was OUR world and for a very short period, there was nothing else!

Go to abc.com, click “Watch Full Episode”, then click, “Stand Alone By Me.” Sip a comfort beverage and---go find, or, at least, remember and cherish YOUR Angela.

I did…..and that’s what I saw from MY porch!