The morning Elias left for military service, we stood beneath the weeping willow tree where we had spent so much of our young love. It was the place where he had proposed with a plastic ring and promised me a real one when he returned. That day, as I adjusted his uniform collar to keep from crying, I told him I was pregnant. Instead of fear, his face lit up with joy. He kissed me, held my hands, and promised that when he came back, we would be married under that very tree. Then he walked away across the field, and I stood there watching until he disappeared from sight, never imagining it would be the last time I would see him for thirty years.
Weeks later, a telegram arrived saying Elias had been lost at sea during a shipwreck and that there were no survivors. His body was never recovered. At twenty-three years old and four months pregnant, I was left with only memories, his uniform folded in a cedar chest, and the child we had created together. I raised our daughter, Stacy, alone in the same little house where Elias had once thrown pebbles at my window and carved his handwriting into the doorframe. Though people told me to move on, I never could. I kept loving him quietly, faithfully, and every year on February 22nd—the day he had promised to return—I visited the willow tree alone, carrying grief that had softened with time but never disappeared.
Leave a Comment