"Actually, I signed all my cards and notes that way, so I was just
thanking you then. But remember that note I wrote where I called
you a 'weird monster man'? Boy, how I loved you then. I wish
you'd responded."
"I thought maybe that meant you didn't like me. I never was good at
hints. I remember thinking a few times that some girl was hinting
that she liked me but when I would ask her out or mention romance,
she'd always look shocked and be dumbstruck with disbelief that I
could ever have thought she'd be interested in me." And here the
soul sighed, as only souls can sigh.
"Well, why didn't you just say something to me, like, 'I love you'?"
asked Lissa.
"I was afraid. And I didn't want to risk destroying our friendship
by producing unwelcome romantic overtures. And besides, I sent you
hints, too."
"Your overtures, as you call them, wouldn't have been unwelcome.
But what do you mean you sent me hints?"
"I took you out to lunch."
"But you took lots of girls out to lunch."
"That was just for companionship or friendship. I just liked them,
but I loved you. I thought about you day and night all through
college, and for awhile after graduation, too."
"I wrote you a couple of love letters that I never sent."
"Gosh, I wish you'd said something."
"I wish you'd said something, too."
* As we pass through earthly life so quickly and only once, how sad
that our fear of rejection is so often stronger than our love.
Seeing is Believing
One day an idle young man was wandering through the woods not far
from his town when he happened upon an old woman standing around a
rather smoky fire and stirring a kettle. Being the modern young man
that he was, he immediately blurted out his first impression:
"Gosh, you're ugly and whatever you're cooking stinks," he told her.
"Well, if you don't like my looks," answered the old woman, "I can
fix that." She then spoke a few strange words, which were followed
by a dramatic puff of smoke, and the young man discovered, not that
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