Excuse me, Ma'am?

“Excuse me, Ma’am?”
As I turn around I can see him walking towards me on the subway. My grip tightens around my bag and immediately I know it. This man is the one.

Our first date is flawless. I choose a rather flashy red dress and begin to doubt my decision in the taxi, but when he looks at me my apprehension melts and I feel beautiful. He tells me of growing up in Braselton, Georgia where his daddy worked as a water operator and his mamma cooked fried chicken every Friday. He explains that at eighteen he left Braselton for NYU with an academic scholarship, where he studied medicine. I am enthralled with his eyes, deep blue like the ocean, wishing I could swim in them.
Exactly one year later, we are married in the plaza. The wedding is beautiful, three hundred in attendance. He doesn’t particularly care about flowers but he has gorgeous centerpieces that are full of beautiful and extravagant flowers because he knows that I love them. We say our own vows, promising to love one another for as long as we can. We sip champagne together in the limo and dance our first dance as husband and wife. In this moment I love him more fiercely than I imagined possible. We honeymoon in Paris and have the time of our lives. He tells me that this is everything he has ever wanted, that I am who he’s waited for his whole life. Our kiss under the Eiffel Tower is one that I will remember forever.
Spring arrives, and with it is our firstborn, a blue-eyed baby girl. Her daddy stands at the edge of her crib and gazes at her as she sleeps. When she is older he swings her up onto his shoulders and carries her downstairs for pancakes every Saturday morning. Her blonde curls are tossed and wild from sleep, her blue eyes deep and penetrating, just like her father’s. As I watch her laugh at daddy’s silly face, I am amazed that this beautiful creature came from me. I hang her art on the refrigerator, three stick figures drawn holding hands in front of a purple house. In the next years we have two more children, each just as stunning as the last.
When the kids are older they bring their families over for Christmas Eve and we eat a brilliant roast and sing carols and open presents. Our grandkids run around with their cousins, whom they haven’t seen in a long time, showing off new train sets and brushing dolls’ hair. I lean into my husband and smile; what more could I possibly need in life than this?
At sixty he retires and we spend a month traveling around the world. We drink beer in Germany, ride a gondola in Venice, and swim in the clear waters of Greece. We are more in love than ever, having experienced the joys and trials of life together. Though we are growing older, I look forward to these later years, in which we will slow down and enjoy quiet hours together.
A few days before his eightieth birthday he dies suddenly of a heart attack. I am devastated and feel a pain more intense than I have ever experienced. As I sit in his funeral I reflect on the life we’ve spent together and though I am heartbroken I begin to feel lighter, knowing that I have lived a life so wonderful that I would do him wrong not to be joyful. I stand at his grave and smile, thinking of the day when we will reunite and continue our life together, never having missed--


“Excuse me, Ma’am? Your coffee is leaking onto your skirt.”