Love at First Sight

Some believe in soulmates, some don't. Nobody really knows for sure if soulmates exist, but I'd like to think that they do. In my opinion, though, they're rare. Maybe there isn't somebody out there for everybody, but it's also a pleasant feeling knowing there very well COULD be somebody out there meant for you. Plenty of people spend their lives trying to find their "soulmate." Everybody they get feelings for or date or love or even marry, they wonder, "IS this person my soulmate?" My very thought, is this: if you have to wonder, then they aren't your soulmate. Soulmates aren't just the person who gives you butterflies or puts a smile on your face. They're not just the person who inspires you to get out of bed every morning. With soulmates, it's powerful. The bond is so strong that nothing, not even death, could break it. When somebody is your soulmate, you just know and they know, too.

Take my parents for example. They met in late May, 1985. They were set up on a blind date by a married couple that they were both friends with. My dad had just moved back to the area after living across the country for a little while. They met at a church softball game and hit it off right away. Afterwards, they went back to the married couple's house and proceeded to stay up all night talking. My mom describes the situation as feeling like they had known each other their whole lives. They both knew right away that they were meant to be together.

Three and a half months later, after they had moved in together and gotten engaged, they got married in mid-September 1985. Everybody who knew my parents, thought they were crazy. They thought the marriage wouldn't last. To be honest, if I had known them back then, I would've thought the same thing! They weren't letting anybody's opinions get to them, though. They knew they were in love and that they wanted nobody else for the rest of their lives.

My mother first got pregnant not long after they were married. Unfortunately, at just ten weeks pregnant, she had a miscarriage. They were married 14 years and had three kids when my dad passed away in May 1999. For many years, my mom felt unable to love anybody romantically. She would date guys, she even married one for a few years, but nobody ever compared to my father. The man she had married for a few years was an awful and abusive man. He also knew that my mom could never love him like she loved my father and always referred to my dad as her "husband." My mom still, to this day, cries over missing my father. The pain to her, feels like it was just yesterday when he passed away.

After my dad passed away, my mom got into the habit of watching the movie What Dreams May Come constantly. It's about soulmates who die at separate times and of separate causes, but find each other in the after-life. I know my mother still feels married to my father, despite him being gone for 18 years. I know that she still loves him as much as she always did. I know that she truly believes in her heart that she will never love another man again. Most importantly, I know when it is her time to go, she will find my father in Heaven and they will be reunited again. That’s what soulmates do. In that moment, it will be "love at first sight" all over again.