A Light Path

Love in Bloom

Love in Bloom

Reprinted with permission from “True Spirit February 2000, vol 3 #2”

Love in Bloom

          Love in Bloom! John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station.  He looked for the girl, whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn’t, the girl with the rose.  His interest in her had begun 13 months before in a Florida library.  Taking a book off a shelf, he found himself intrigued not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin.  The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. 

          In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner’s name, Miss Hollis Maynell.  With time and effort, he located her address.  She lived in New York City. 

          So, he wrote her a letter introducing himself and invited her to correspond.  The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II.  During the next year, the two grew to learn about each other through the mail.  Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart.  A romance was budding.  Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused.  She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn’t matter what she looked like.  When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting — 7:00 PM at Grand Central Station in New York.  “You’ll recognize me,” she wrote, “by the rose I’ll be wearing in my lapel.”

He wrote her a letter introducing himself and invited her to correspond

          So at 7:00 PM, he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he’d never seen.  I’ll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:

         As a result, a young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim.  Her blond hair lay back in curls framing her delicate ears; and her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive.  I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose.  As I moved, a small provocative smile curved her lips.  “Going my way, sailor?” she murmured.  Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell.

She was standing directly behind the girl

          Subsequently, she was standing almost directly behind the girl.  A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat.  She was more than plump, her thick angled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes.  The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away.  I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had so truly companioned me and upheld my own.

          And there she stood.  Her pale plum face was gentle and sensible; her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle.  I did not hesitate.  My fingers gripped the small blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her.  This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful.

I’m Lieutenant John Blanchard

           I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment.  “I’m Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell.  I am so glad you could meet me, may I take you to dinner?”  The woman’s face broadened into a tolerant smile.  “I don’t know what this is about, son,” she answered, “but the young lady in the green suit, who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on my coat.  And she said, if you were to ask me to dinner, I should tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street.  She said it was some kind of a test”.

           It’s not difficult to understand Miss Maynell’s wisdom.  The true nature of a heart is seen its response to the unattractive.  “Tell me whom you love, “Houssaye wrote, “and I will tell you who you are.”      

Love in Bloom Contributed by Gloria Riley. Author of Gateways to Change: Navigating the Seas of Life.

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