Tie A Yellow Ribbon

 This was our song.  I cannot hear it without pulling over to cry...still.

I am very sorry that I keep forgetting things, readers. Not that this incident will every leave my mind or my heart. There are times that I block this particular part of my life out because, even right now, it makes me cry.

While I worked at Warehouse Food Center there were many cute boys that worked there as buggy pushers. This is long before they had the machines they do at Wal-Mart that you put behind the long, long row of buggies to be pushed inside. These guys did it all by hand – and by back!!

I looked up one day and there was a new buggy pusher. It was raining outside and he had on a long brown trench coat. He had long blonde/brown hair – dirty blonde, actually, but I hate that connotation. He had hazel eyes and a very faint, never been shaved, mustache He looked at me as I stared at him and smiled a very shy smile and looked away. Yeah, I was totally smitten.

Not being a stupid girl, I started taking my breaks the same time he did. We started talking and, the shy smile was a dead give away to his personality. His name was C.L., he was shy and I talked 90 to nothing! He did reveal that he lived with his mother, his grandmother and his little sister, Cynthia. He always smiled that smile and always so very sweet. Sometimes he would call me at night and we would talk. Funny the things you remember. Once night we were talking and his dog was in the kitchen with him. He was eating something and he started laughing. He had dropped one of the canned peaches he was eating on the floor and his puppy dog was eating it. Isn't that a strange thing to remember? I suppose it's that I have so few memories of him that I hold on to the ones I have.

I am really not sure why but after a few weeks of getting to know each other he asked me out on a date. Thinking back I can still remember how excited I was. He was a perfect gentleman when he came to pick me up. He shook Walters hand and was very sweet to my mom. Very sweet but still that hint of shyness. He had a vintage black Chevrolet SS and he opened and closed my door for me when I got it. We went to see “The Cheap Detective”. We talked (whispered) all during the movie and even kissed a little. I thought I would die right then and there! As much as a 16 year old could be in love, I was.

There was a guy named Kenny who worked there as a cashier that I had dated immediately after working there in August and this was right after Thanksgiving 1978. He still had some sort of thing for me. He begged me to come out and talk to him at his car one night. C.L. happened to be off that night. I didn't see what harm there could be in walking to his car. You know, my mother prayed that prayer that the Lord would be sure I was caught if I ever did something wrong. And it worked. C.L. drove right up beside us, took one angry look at us and drove away, tires screeching. I was devastated as I'm sure he must have been, as well. We were only standing there talking about something that couldn't have been important and certainly nothing I felt would interfere with my relationship with C.L. But he obviously was very hurt by it.

We didn't speak for a week. I cried myself to sleep every night. On Thursday night of the next week I finally mustered all my courage and told him I was so sorry and that, if he could forgive me. I really wanted to get back together with him. All he said with an angry look on his face was “I've got another girl!” My heart was so hurt I could actually feel it IN my heart. I really thought I might be having a heart attack...at 16...stupid, right?

The next night was Friday and I always went to Pizza Hut on Friday night to get myself a personal pan pizza. I couldn't really eat it I was so sick about C.L. I noticed him come into the break area and as I was leaving I asked if he wanted my left overs. He said “Thank you” and took them to eat for his dinner.

That night before I went to sleep I prayed for God to please take this hurt away from me. I felt like I was dying inside. You remember that heartsick love of a teen-aged heart, right? I have never prayed that prayer again. What happened next taught me to be very careful what you pray for because you might get it in a way you never dreamed in your worst nightmares.

Because my mom worked for the telephone company I was afforded my own private phone line in my room. Nice perk. My phone rang sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It was my dear friend, Marilyn. We had been friends since Hillcrest and still are friends to this day. She said that C.L. and another boy we went to school with at Wingfield had been in a car accident on McDowell Road, which was our cruising road. C.L. was dead.

I remember walking into my parents room, in the dark, crying so hard they could barely understand me and told them what had happened. They both turned their lights on and comforted me as best they could. But there was no comfort for me. My heart was broken.

Prior to the funeral visitation for C.L. I had never met his family. I remember looking down a hallway and seeing a beautiful young girl in a white dress with her arms folded walking the hall up and down, crying harder than I had ever seen anyone cry. She had the same beautiful sandy-brown hair as C.L. with the same eyes as him only piercing blue in color. I knew right away that this was his little sister. Cynthia. I didn't bother her then. I left her to feel her own grief as everyone should be allowed to. In the visitation room I met his mother and grandmother who were doing their best to be strong but their grief showed through. They were lovely women and from that night on they made me feel a part of their family. Can you imaging losing your only son and still having the capacity to love someone they had never met? This was a family of extraordinary women.

The funeral is still one of the very hardest things I have ever gone through. I kept it together until, at the graveside service as I was walking away I lost all composure. Not sure how far down deep in my soul the tears came from but I had only felt that kind of grief when I lost my grandmother. C.L.'s grandmother sent his little nephew to say “Come back! Come back!” They sat me down with the rest of their family and allowed my tears and grief to flow. I couldn't imagine that kind of love and acceptance from a family I had only met a couple of days before.

Later on, Cynthia and I became fast friends. She was like my little sister. Not sure how C.L.'s mother found the strength to let her get in the car with me and ride up and down McDowell Road. But she did. We would spend the night with each other just like we had known each other forever.

I had my tonsils out during Christmas break. I ended up spending the night in the hospital and imagine my surprise the next morning when a beautiful vase of yellow roses arrived in my room. This was when “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was a very popular song. The card read “Tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree if you still love us! Love C.L.'s Family.

That ribbon has remained tied for 33 years.