Cancer prompts search for lost love
DEAR ABBY: This is the 37th anniversary of when I met and fell in love with a beautiful young woman in Iowa. We were together less than a year before she decided to pursue her dreams in California. When she left, it broke my heart for years. To this day I still feel the loss.
In the years that followed, our paths crossed a few more times. Because I was recently married then, I told my old friend and lover I needed to close the book on our relationship. Saying it ripped my heart out because I knew it would cause me to lose her forever, but we both respected it. After a divorce many years later, I started looking for her, to no avail.
An urgency has overcome me now because I have been diagnosed with cancer and I’m not sure what my future holds. I don’t want to rekindle something I can’t finish, but I would like to say goodbye one last time before I’m laid to my eternal rest. Should I continue searching for her or should I stop, hoping she hears my prayers after all these years and knowing I tried to do the right thing by her when I smiled and waved as she drove away so long ago? — UNSURE OF MY FUTURE DEAR UNSURE:
Please accept my sympathy for your diagnosis.
I’m sure most women would be touched to hear they were the love of someone’s life, even if that love was unrequited.
Remember, that decision was made many years ago. What if you find her and she’s married with children? Would it make you feel better or worse? These days, many cancers are treatable/curable. If you should find her and you are not terminal, will it give you closure or more heartache? Only you can answer that.