A Love Lost in Time

By James M. DeHaven

Sometimes we get so caught up in the world, we become blind to our spiritual side, which actually holds the unseen place where love dwells. This is a story of two people, who struggle to stay together, yet allowing the world to keep pulling them apart. The beginning of their story is the end, and the end is their beginning. Follow their life journey and discover the unseen reality that intermingles life and death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716671678

Book preview

A

LOVE

LOST

In

TIME

By

JAMES M. DEHAVEN

© 2020 by James M. DeHaven

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2020 by James M. DeHaven

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing by the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

JMD Productions tm

James M. DeHaven, Author

A Love Lost in Time

Layout:    James M. DeHaven

Cover:    Peter A. DeHaven, Painting

Cover:    Mark S. DeHaven, Pixel Picture

Cover:    Doug J. DeHaven, Digital Background

Author: James M. DeHaven

ISBN:       978-1-716-67167-8

Second Edition: October 2020

Other books by James M. DeHaven

Ghost Coach

Soul Survivor

Sanctuary Island

Terragon Stardate 2050

The 7 Gifts of Paradise

A.I.D.E.N.N. The Android Robot

How Does God Communicate to Us?

Peter and the Farmhouse Treasure

Jeremy and the Christmas Shoes

Danielle’s Christmas Wish

Walter and Flash

Snow Angel

Visit the Author’s Website for:

Sample content, reviews, and purchase opportunities.

www.jmdprods.com

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

No book can be created without the editing and polishing of the final product.

I want to thank my wife for her continued confidence in me and for her support. I trust all her suggestions. Her editing is very good too! Thanks for all your hard work!

To my writing friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, but agreed to graciously edit this book. Also, for his professional expertise that lends credibility and realism to some terms and procedures for the characters. His editing and changes were extensive and well done.

To my friend, Denise, who also edited this book and many of my other books. Thank you for the generosity of sharing your grammar skills, suggestions, and hard work that always make the final product much better than it ever would have been.

Also, thanks to my Tuesday Writers Group friends who lent their female perspectives on several scenarios in this book. The information they provided was invaluable for the female character, Lucy.

To my brother, Pete, for creating the cover design painting. And to my other brother, Mark, for the detailed picture for the cover. Always, to my brothers for their input on location, plot suggestions, etc. I bug them with my new stories and they always have positive suggestions.

To my son, Doug, for his technical expertise with the final book cover background color blend and glow. He really captured the essence of this story with his final design.

To my, Kresna` (Godmother) Marge, and her husband, Pete, both musicians, for their technical advice regarding the music sequence. And most of all, for their lifelong example of love and marriage.

To my new friends Bill & Pam whom we met in Florida. Bill was a Medic in Vietnam and provided advice and credibility to the Vietnam sequence. Thank you for your service.

To my friends who are mentioned in this story – Rose, Jeanne, Joanne, Denise, Rick, Stan, Marge, etc. I had your friendships and memories in mind when I wrote your names into the story. Thank you all for the lifetime of memories. Have fun finding your names in the story.

This genre’ was truly different for me. I took pieces of some of my past experiences as well as others who shared theirs (amended of course) to add to the story. Love takes many shapes as it twists and turns in each of our lives.

Sometimes we know we absolutely found the right one the first time. Sometimes it takes multiple tries. More importantly, we should be thankful every day for finding that special one. Then, looking back, we may wonder sometimes…what if?

However, it worked out for you in your life, I hope your story is, was, and will be a great one.

Dedication

To Family and Friends

who have loved, lost love, and found love.

To have loved… is to have lived.

This book is based on this Bible passage.

"For this reason, we never become discouraged.

Even though our physical being is gradually decaying, yet our spiritual being is renewed day after day. And this small and temporary trouble we suffer will bring us a tremendous and eternal glory, much greater than the trouble. For we fix our attention, not on things that are seen, but on things that are unseen. What can be seen lasts only for a time, but what cannot be seen lasts forever."

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

~~~

Meaning of the Cover Art

There are two main characters, Lucy & Luke. Thus, the two hearts. Love is felt in the heart and soul. Hearts and souls become joined when two people fall in love - their hearts and souls should blend as one in marriage. The colors - red, pink, and blue represent; red for blood/life and love, pink for Lucy, blue for their bruised hearts from the heartaches they experienced. And the white glow around them...well, the ending explains that one. You will have to read the story to the end (or the beginning) to understand and discover that meaning. Enjoy!

The End

LUKE

I love you, she barely whispered. I have always loved you. I am so sorry that I pushed you away so many times. You have been and always were my first love, my only love.

And then her eyes slowly closed. I sensed that our final moments were upon us.

I knew she struggled to say those words. We both had gotten to a point that we could hardly move, except for the reach of our arms which allowed us to keep holding hands. All our remaining strength went into our handhold.

I watched the tears trickle slowly down the creased lines of the now wrinkled corners of her eyes. They adorned her beautiful face. She lay softly on her pillow. She looked peaceful. Her hair, now grey, enfolded her face as it always had. The nurses had done a wonderful job of keeping her dressed, coiffed, and made up appropriate to her age.

In my mind, the inner movie of my memories jumped back and forth through the years, from the little girl's face, to the teenage face, to the adult face, to today's face. She was always beautiful to me.

The years had caught up to us. Life had caught up to us. Yet I still saw the beauty in her eyes. And could still see the little girl in my mind’s eye.

I still felt the tingling in my heart that first invaded my soul so long ago. I wondered if she did too. And, from the stories she had shared with me in these previous weeks and months, and what she was trying to tell me now, in our final moments, I believed that she did.

How we ever found each other in this nursing home was a miracle. How we ended up here, in the same town, in the same place, was just too much of a coincidence. Or was it?

Yet, here we are, together once more. We had for too many times in our lives met up only to have fate separate us time and again. And this time, I knew what would separate us once more…death. The final cruel hand of fate would touch us both one last time.

Rather than dwell on the past, I chose to relish these days, these hours, these final moments that we had together right now. At least we had these; our final words, our final confessions, our truth at last.

I guess I could not ask for more at this stage. Fate had brought us together for one last time. But this time, we both admitted to our feelings for each other, and to our love, which was lost in time.

I am thankful to God for this gift at the end of our lives.

The touch of her hand was comforting. It felt natural. It felt right. Time was over for us. I felt death coming. I saw it enveloping her as well. Over these past weeks and days, I saw it taking over. Consuming more and more of her energy and leaving her less than the whole, beautiful person I had come to know and love.

We became weaker, no longer able to sit side by side in our chairs. No longer able to share a meal. No longer able to have our ‘catch-up’ talks about what we had done, where we had gone, and what we had accomplished in our lives.

Our laughter grew silent. Our breaths grew shorter. Our strength gradually giving out. What we had left, was the touch of our hands, the inner peace of our truth, and the closeness of each other within the distance of our two hospital beds.

We had asked the staff to push our beds next to each other so that we could touch our hands. IV lines and tubes from various machines invaded our bodies and now even our peace. We were together, and that was all that mattered.

I shut the noise of all the medical machines out of my mind and concentrated my gaze solely on her face. I focused on those blue-green eyes that never lost their brightness until this moment.

I cherished the look she gave me until she would close them for good. I felt the weakness in her hand, I felt the coolness in our touch, I saw the monitors reacting to the finality of it.

We both knew these were our final moments together.

In these last days, I was able to tell her that I loved her too. That I always had. And that she had forever been in my heart and on my mind. No one had ever been in my soul as she had. No one ever occupied my thoughts as much as her.

We had said what we wanted to say to each other in these final days. We were gifted with that at least. We finally recognized the love we had wasted and lost. And now, in the end, all we could do was admit to our loss. To admit our love, and to enjoy these precious moments that remained.

Sadly, that would have to be enough.

I wasn’t aware of time passing, so I don’t know how long all this transpired while I was lost in my thoughts, but I could sense her slipping away. I also drifted in and out of the darkness. I kept willing myself back to consciousness so that I could be her strength and her comfort, and give her peace.

We had no one else. We never married, we never had children.

Other than the kindness of the nursing home employees and of the strangers who came to see us, because of our story, the only compassion we had besides those visits was what we gave to each other.

I wanted to be everything for her now. To be and feel that childhood love, the innocence, and peace and joy that we had from meeting in the first grade. To give her soul the comfort at the end of life as we had at the beginning of our lives. I wanted her to experience it all just one more time.

My last memories were of the sound of the machines beeping loudly. The last feeling that I was aware of was her cold hand. And then suddenly, there was nothing. Blackness enveloped me. The darkness providing a soothing, calming stillness that I have never felt before. Like a soft warm, consoling blanket that gave me peace. There was no cold, there was no heat, there was no sound.

Yet I could still, clearly and significantly, feel the love in my heart. It gave me comfort and peace. And then, just as suddenly, I saw the light.

LUCY

I still find it hard to believe we found each other in this nursing home. The twists and turns our lives had taken over all these years were unbelievable. And yet, here we find ourselves together once more in our hometown and in the same nursing home. How is that possible? Was the thought that kept recurring in my mind.

I am overwhelmed with my diagnosis and seeing him and having him here with me in what I know must be my last days. Lung cancer; who would have believed it? I never smoked. I thought I was doing the right thing in that fire. And Luke, I wish he would have taken better care of himself. Of all the people I helped, I wasn’t there to help him. Fate has been fickle and oh so strange with us.

However, I am grateful that he is here with me now. We have had some good weeks to catch up on our past and admit what we always knew... and that was just how very much we loved each other. My thoughts keep going to, why had we been pulled apart so many times?

I can sense that we belonged with each other. And from what he is telling me, I realized that he feels the same. At least we have this time together now.

In this time that we have left, we finally admitted our love to each other. And that would have to be enough.

We realized that this is the end. We both see it, feel it, and just know. That is what has made these final weeks, days,