The First Boyfriend

The woman reminisced about her first boyfriend. She met him at 4-H camp when she was but fourteen years old, two years before she was allowed to date. Their relationship began and ended before her sixteenth birthday due to her youth and the overzealous ways of her father. However, in remembering him, the time disappeared, and the memory was as clear as the first ice on the lake in winter.

He was the kind of man who had a crooked smile, a ready laugh, and a joyful nature so infectious that it lit up all those around him. He was a little less than average in stature, but he had a reasonable sense of his own worth, which caused the subject never to come up. He had a quiet strength, a sincere character, and a trustworthiness that caused the woman to believe that he would make something out of his life.

The woman lost touch with him over the years, only to learn a little about him decades later. His sense of humor was as buoyant as in his youth, with a sharpened wit tempered by age. He had experienced success in the military far beyond what others imagined. It pleased the woman immensely to discover the culmination that the young man's identity promised, and she smiled with pleasure at having seen a glimpse from the past into the future.