I think of my first kiss in late summer. I play around with words as the memories float in and out. "First Kiss, Last Month. Last Kisser, not the First Kisser, but Best Kisser. Sweet Kiss." The night after a walk from the pool. The picnic table secluded. I don't miss the boy, at all. Other boys I may miss until I think where we are today. I love the Last Kisser, my husband of thirty two years. Hard to believe sometimes that I haven't kissed anyone else in a romantic way in thirty four years.
Church camp kisses on the last night around a fire, when all the lights are low. We cried. We're fresh in soul searching. Life will be different. The letters last for a season, but they stop and we move on.
Later years I kiss after dates, dances and McDonald's. Sometimes not as romantic or sweet. A policeman cautions, "Move along." I am kept safe from little more than kisses.
And then I am safe with the man who loves me and strives to marry me. I think back, "Oh, how young we both were, yet at eighteen and nineteen, twenty three and twenty four is wise." He joins the Navy. We avoid other kissers, even when tempted. Something more than a cuddly feeling keeps us strong all those months, without instant messaging, facebook or even cell phones. We keep each other in our minds by letters and phone calls twice a week. We believe in God, if not in as personal way as we should, that keeps us loyal. I couldn't desert that man, who gave up so much to make a life for us.
A bit of that must be in Morgan and Iggy's romance as I write. I draw on what I know to write what I don't. Is that kind of devotion still around, in the age of anything goes? Nieces are staying married fifteen and sixteen years. Nephew still with his childhood sweetheart going on twenty years.
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