"I LOVE YOU - those three words have my life in them. "

~ Alexandrea to Nicholas III ~


Hiya All,



Valentines Day is just around the corner and I must share this old favourite story of mine. I remember reading it somewhere long ago and i had saved it. Hope you like it too.



Happy Valentines Day.


Enjoy


Love

- Vish

JOHN BLANCHARD

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd 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 thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book but with the notes pencilled in the margins. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and an insightful mind. In front of the book, he discovered the previous owners name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter and invited her to correspond. The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. The 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 p.m. at the Grand Central Station in New York.

“You’ll recognize me,” she wrote, “by the red rose that I’ll be wearing in my lapel.”

So at 7.00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved but whose face he had never seen. I’ll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened:

“A young woman was coming towards me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears, her eyes were blue as flowers. Her lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green dress she was like springtime come alive. I started towards 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 took one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell.

She was standing directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a old worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking away quickly. 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 truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn 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 even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. 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 all about, son,” she answered, “but the young lady in the green dress who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose in my coat. And she said that 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.”

……………………………………*……………………………………
“Tell me who you love,”

Shakespeare once wrote,
“And I’ll tell you who you are.”