Once Upon a Time...

December 24, 2018

Evening.... Christmas Eve. This was my third Christmas totally alone. And it was the third one that my friend Micah insisted I spend with her family so I would not be alone.  There was food, there were games, kids, adults, laughter, fudge, more food, gifts, and pictures being posted to facebook with me getting tagged to them. So my phone kept buzzing. 

I had lived in this community since 1992. I left a bad marriage and moved to the slower country life of Wise County Texas.  When I lived here long enough I filed for divorce and settled down to live on a few acres with dogs, horses, goats, and ducks/chickens/geese.  I commuted to the office I had in Dallas where I worked in partnership with my mother in a Natural Health business.  It was a life long passion for me. 

Time marched on with me living single and my mother getting older. In 2001, she had her 80th birthday. She sold her house and moved in with me.  In the following years she became mildly handicapped and I became more of a caregiver. In 2015, she fell and broke her leg and that led to her death some months later. 

In 2018,  I had to close the office we had for so long.  That was hard with so many of my personal memories there. I did have a great new place to work. Two, actually, one in Bridgeport partnering with BlueSky Wellness Center and one in Dallas.   They are both great places.    But it had been a very rocky year and I also was not feeling so well. . I thought this was stress induced.  And if nothing else, I was grateful for friends that would not let me be alone on Christmas. 

That is how I came to be sitting on the couch at Micah’s  house on Christmas Eve with a telephone that was buzzing notifications of pictures I was tagged to on facebook. My telephone buzzed again.  Micah was sitting beside me and read the post as it popped up. 

“Is this the LaVonna Gates who lived in Grapevine, Texas and was a friend with my friends in Arkansas?”

It was from John. 

I started to write a long answer. Yes, it is. How are you guys doing? It has been years since I last saw you.

No, erase that. 

Yes, it is. How are you doing?  How is your wife?

No, erase that. 

So my answer became “yes, it is”

He answered back saying that this was John and he was now living in Oklahoma. He said nothing about his wife. I simply replied “Hi, John.”

Micah asked if I knew him?  She was curious. I told her and her sister about the guy I met so long ago. I went to Arkansas to my best friend Bonnie’s high school graduation in 1973.  My friend had gotten married a few months before graduation. John was Bonnie’s husband’s friend. He also graduated that night. The four of us spent a very unusual weekend together. After that he drove to Texas a number of times to visit. Then not so much. But for several years we crossed trails from time to time. It was my thought that he was a good guy who was almost someone special. Someone who could have been... but it did not happen. 

September 2019

John came back into my life this year.  He wanted to see if what started when we were 18 could finally happen. We are both 64 years old this year. Then I also had a serious health event. Overall,  my life was really shaken up in 2019.   In the beginning,  both lifestyle changes were painful.  Even frightening. Then manageable and not so scary. 

Details of what happened, how it happened and where  it is going to come.