One of the most beautiful songs ever is the theme from the 1980 film, Somewhere in Time.  Many of you may remember it – Christopher Reeves plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes smitten by a photograph of a young woman at the Grand Hotel.  Through self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find true love with the actress in the picture, Elise McKenna.  A simple synopsis for an amazing movie that will stay with you forever once you’ve seen it.

I often think of the things that created who I am, what I believed, what I dreamed.  We don’t always realize what impacts us – what one little thing that will keep a small fire burning deep inside when everything else in life has worked to totally extinguish hopes and dreams.

This movie was one of the items tucked away inside me, because I always wondered if there was someone out there who could love as strongly as this character did.  I was a very liberated woman of the times but that did not stop the tiny little flame.  It did not stop me from believing in a Knight in Shining Armour.  It did not stop hope.

Another tiny item tucked away in my heart was an article I read in a magazine akin to Guideposts.  It told the story of a divorced woman who had 2 children.  It also told of a man who was widowed and never thought to find love again.  One morning she was fixing breakfast for her children and felt a strong urge to take her children to McDonalds for breakfast.  She thought, “I’m in the middle of fixing breakfast here and besides, I really can’t afford to go to McDonalds!”  But the feeling was persistent so she turned off the stove, packed up her children and took them to McDonalds.

The man was on his way to work when he was overcome with an urge to stop by McDonalds and grab a muffin and coffee.  So he stopped by the local McDonalds.  It was packed with people and the only place to sit was a chair at a table with a beautiful woman with 2 children.  He had no idea why, but he asked if he could share her table; she said yes and they chatted.

End result was that they ended up in an amazingly happily ever after, divinely hooked together.  The story was more in-depth than what I am telling, but it also marked me.  I wanted that.

The strongest thing to keep that fire burning was a book* I’d read where a couple met in their 50’s in 1969.  This is a true story.  She was a widow and was never going to marry again.  He was a widower who’d also had an amazing marriage.

Charles and Frances Hunter never had a date, never saw each other from the time they met until they met each other again in the airport when he came to Miami to marry her.  They were married 88 days after they met (that one time).  The book was their incredible, uncensored love letters that they wrote to each other as they were falling in love and didn’t know it.

Between October 9 1969 and December 20 1969 there were several letters and phone calls that became more and more personal and intimate.  Love began to bloom for her.  She eventually let him into her heart.  Because he had loved his late wife so much, he did not want to cheat this new love of his life and he asked God to give him “a love for her beyond anything he had ever known.”  That is exactly what happened.

They met the second time to get married one minute after midnight New Year’s Eve.  They were passionately in love with one another.  When I met them in the late 1980’s, they were still happy, passionate, and full of joy.  They remained passionate about one another and about everything they did until her passing at age 93 in 2009 and his at age 90 in 2010.

That story more than any other set me up for life.  I wanted that.  I wanted something so divine that only God could have put it together.  I wanted something so supernatural that it would encompass me, keep me safe, fill my heart with joy, and be something I’d never had or known before.

My last post was supposed to be my last post.  I was going to quit blogging.  Every time I wrote another post about Alpha Hubby, about the relationship we have, about what a blessed life I have with him, I would think to myself that people must be getting sick of hearing about it.  I liken it to grandparents who flip out a huge picture album of their grandchildren and expect you to sit and look at all 140 of them, oohing and ahhing with them over their preciousness… or pets… or vacation pictures.

Right after I made that decision, love shined on me.  I received a few emails from people who said that something I wrote touched their heart.  Or something I wrote gave them hope that true love really was out there.  Or something I wrote changed their relationship.  Or that they loved reading my posts because it always made them feel good – or, even better, made them want to go jump their mate in a passionate way.

I thought about how someone’s love story – someone’s miracle – changed my life and kept me hoping for a true love, a real romance, passion, a miracle of my own.  That is what I held out for because those stories kept that tiny flame burning in hope it could happen.

If my posts give just one person hope, or helps keep their flame burning, then that is enough for me.

Because you know what?  Somewhere in time, there was a boy made just for a girl.  Somewhere in time there was a boy dreaming of a girl and a girl dreaming of a boy.  Somewhere in time there was Someone Who led them to one another, bruised, battered and barely having a heart to give.  Somewhere in time, 7 weeks after they met, they married.  Somewhere in time, their love grew in powerful measures and their hearts healed and expanded, grew more passionate and intimate.  That was 19 years, 6 months, 3 weeks ago.

And they lived happily ever after.

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The book I read was entitled, “My Love Affair with Charles.”  It was re-titled in 1994 as “How to Pick a Perfect Husband… or Wife” by Frances Hunter.