Prompt 48: 4. Love is what you've been through with somebody- James Thurber/On The Couch

From the time I was a young child I remember sitting and listening as people told stories of finding that one person who they knew was meant for them. From my parents, to my grandparents, to their friends, everyone had a story, if not of finding their own love, than of someone they knew who had. I don't know if I really gave them anymore thought than all of the rest of the stories I heard through my childhood until that moment that I first saw Danijela.

From my very first glimpse of her I knew that she was the one I wanted to spend my life with and nothing anyone could say could sway me. Because of our ages, Danijela was just 16 when we met, we waited two years to marry and during that time we made so many plans for our future. I don't think two years could have moved any slower than those two did, and it certainly wasn't helped by our being separated because while Danijela was finishing school, I was away fulfilling my military obligations.

We married when Danijela turned 18, and nine months later we welcomed our daughter, Jasna into our lives. If I thought I had loved my wife before, it was nothing compared to what I felt toward her once she began to carry that life inside of her, than later gave birth. Can anything be as beautiful as a mother and her child. I could have spent hours just watching them together, envying her that closeness gained with our daughter as she breastfed her. It would deepen still further with the birth three years later of our son.

I'll never know why our love was tested in the ways that it was. I'll never know why the life that seemed so perfect from it's start would end so suddenly, but, it did. I do know though that the love I felt for Danijela, the love I still feel for her will always be with me. It took me a long time to understand that it's okay for me to keep loving her. It took me a long time to understand that there was room in my heart for someone besides Danijela, and once I realized that I not only loved her even more, but, I could at long last move on.