By Patricia Burnup, January 29, 2020 — I think everyone in life has a soul mate and I almost didn’t meet mine. When I was 19 years old living back in England where I grew up, one of my friends wanted to take me to a party where I was supposed to meet up with a boy. We didn’t have phones back then or the Facebook, whatever you kids do nowadays, so when you wanted to see someone you actually had to go see them. We got to the party and I wasn’t really into it. That boy never showed up and they were playing music that I didn’t really like. You probably wouldn’t know that music, it’s not like that hip-hop rap they play today. I don’t like that stuff.
Anyways, I stayed for probably an hour or so and I wanted to leave. As I was walking through the stairwell a man came stumbling around the corner and put his arms out like a giant T so that I couldn’t get through. At first, I was a little annoyed, but then I noticed he must’ve had a few too many drinks because he was a little wobbly. I said, “Excuse me, but I’m trying to leave. He said to me, “But I just got here, and you are too beautiful to be here by yourself.” We went back into the party and sat on the couch. He told me that he was over from America serving in the war, I can’t remember what war it was, but to me, it sounded like he just liked to be in the army because he got to play a lot of baseball. We got to talking and he pulled out his wallet and showed me a picture of his beautiful girlfriend laying on the beach in one of those skimpy bikinis. He told me he missed her.
We spent probably 3 hours on the couch just talking to each other. I told him I had to go, and he wanted to walk me home. It was dark, damp, and cold, that’s usually how England is because it’s surrounded by water. It took us probably 30 minutes to get back to my house. When we got to my house, I thanked him for walking me home. I purposely tried to keep us out of the light by my front porch because I didn’t want my parents to wake up and see us — mostly my dad. Before I walked inside, he gave me a kiss goodnight and asked if he could see me again.
By the third or fourth date, I knew this was the man I wanted to marry. It’s crazy to think that if I didn’t leave the party at the time that I did, we never would have crossed paths in life. Think about it! If I had left just 1 minute earlier or 2 minutes later, I wouldn’t have been in that stairwell and neither would he! It’s funny how life works like that, and I think people are put in your life for a reason.
Me and [my husband] built a wonderful life together. It was hard watching him forget as his memory became bad with the Alzheimer’s. It upset me that he couldn’t remember important things from 67 years of life that we built together. Even though he started to forget he always had a good spirit. Every night when I turned down the bed for him and tucked him in, he would roll over and look at me and say, “Patty, I love you. You are so beautiful. Goodnight sweetheart.” Not many people in life get to experience love like that. Everyone is too busy arguing about silly things. Arguing is stupid it’s two people going back and forth trying to convince the other that your opinion is right, don’t waste your time arguing. Anyways, I loved [my husband] and I always will. I don’t know what happened to his girlfriend, her name was June Brown, but I’m glad it didn’t work out and that I snuck in. I think about him all the time and remind myself that I’m so lucky to have found someone who gave me three beautiful children and three beautiful grandchildren.