Lilac scented hair

This is something I wrote many months back. I will have something new for this blog tomorrow.

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Passion at the end of my lips displace this disdain for unhappy memories. A silver thread of hair brushes my face as you lean in closer. Time is to blame for misplacing the memories of our dance. The smell of lilacs from your hair take me back to a time.

Laying in a distraught basement bed, we are both struck by the sound of a 57 Buick century pulling in. Your father coming home from a service meeting. He has connections, connections that I don't want to think about while I am with you, unsupervised. The clunk of his military bag and boots hitting the floor destroyed what little courage I had when I was around him. The sunlight was smiling on me and reminds me of the basement window. You have time to get dressed and I have time to escape. I feel the pain of what I can only imagine is a heart attack far to early for my 18 year old body. You have to distract him at the basement entrance while I squeeze through the window. I faintly hear voices as I make my way to the closest cover, lilacs, to get the rest of my clothes on. The next thing I hear is what took me from you. The jingle from a bell. A very old and curious beagle made his way to me, catching the attention of the owner. "Little cold to be half naked out here, Johnathon Bridger". If he didn't say my last name. Why did he have to say my last name? The hope that your father didn't hear that was naive. The man could hear the snap of a twig 100 yards away. Why would I have thought he couldn't hear my name being spoken. He made his way through the door like he was chasing a Vietnamese soldier. Although, he did see me as a much worse enemy. You his only child and me the son of a well known activist. I was glad that the only drink I had was a glass of orange juice for breakfast. The fear would have been much easier to see. The conversation we had was short. Either he would take me through a training exercise and kill me "accidentally" or send me to Nam. The choice was not hard.

I was away from you for 9 years before I "luckily" got shot in the shoulder. My commanding officer thought I was brave for saving his life. Bravery had nothing to do with it. I tripped and fell into him as a sniper was taking a shot. A fools medal is how I see it. The war was almost over and I got shot because I tripped over my own boots. Nonetheless, it got me home early. Early enough to see that you had married someone that your father approved of. I wished that shot had killed me. Finding out that you had a son named John made the pain much worse. I had earned your fathers respect but the price was far to high for me to appreciate it. I couldn't let you know that I was home. We had both aged but you were even more beautiful than I remembered. I couldn't let you see the man I have become. So I left.

On my 53rd birthday I received a letter stating that a very well respected military officer died in a car accident. A 57 Buick century.The odds of it belonging to your father were slim but I still had to go to that funeral. If not out of respect than for hope. Naive again. I found out that your father traded that car to a good friend of his. The funeral was long and full of people I never wanted to see again. However I did run into a well established 27 year old fighter pilot named John. He knew my name before I introduced myself. And for some reason that didn't surprise me.

John told me about your father and asked me why I didn't wear my medals. Two topics that I did not want to talk about. After about 10 minutes of him talking about his career and the respect he has for the people that made his path possible, your name was finally brought up. I think it was out of desperation for saving the conversation. John caught my interest and I wanted to hear everything he could tell me. He told me about his own son, your grandson, named Johnathon. He also told me that you were the one who encouraged him to pick that name. That made me smile. He gave me details about his teen years and how he would often hear your father apologizing to you, for what he had done to me. Your husband was abusive and your father blamed himself for making you go through that. As much as I wanted to hear about your father being wrong, I just wanted to know where you were. Although John knew more about me than I did, he still hesitated to tell me. He didn't want you to get hurt. After I told him "You know me well enough to know that hurting your mother is the last thing I would ever do" he mentioned a park. A park with lilacs, where I once sought cover, from a 57 Buick century, from the man who drove it. John told me the best way to get there from the base. It did surprise me that he thought I did not know the way already. Before John could say goodbye I was already driving away.

That is how I found you and your lilac scented silver hair.