Marcia, Incomplete Completion

Now, I have to wonder exactly what all of you might be anticipating after this tumultuous few days.

After all, this post was originally composed ages ago. It's been sitting in draft form on my account for months, long before I abruptly decided to open this tale with Marcia Last.

Kind of changes things, doesn't it?

Here I have been telling you something of the fairy tale...without the romantic beginning.

Well, er...perhaps I'm the only one who thought that it was a romantic beginning.

And I hope that perhaps to some of you...it has seemed like a fairy tale.

At least the "Boy Meets Fairy Princess" part.

I'm afraid that I botched the rest.

All that I knew, was that I was captivated. And moments built over the years, ending in a heart wrenching crescendo.

I suppose that's all there is to it, after all. I really should get on with the story. Now, at least slightly rewritten for some small degree of detail and accuracy. Hopefully that translates to "better".

I cannot hope to do it justice.

***

I'll remember the very first time that I really saw Marcia; frankly, it's like something out of a fairy tale.

Because I really mean first time, as well as saw. Most of the years long story involving her is exactly that, a romantic fantasy, up until and including the last moment that I have to write about. Indeed, the very last time that I saw her.

Just remember, this first moment was over twenty-five years ago.

That very first instant is unmistakable, so long ago. I was eighteen, and had just graduated from high school. It was a 'last pass' trip with our Church youth choir, and both the departing seniors and entering sophomores were invited along. For whatever reason, I can't seem to remember noticing Marcia, though we had to have had a number of choir practices prior to this weekend.

Yet there we were, early the morning just preceding the performance. It was utter chaos, dozens of youth choir singers swirling about in a large room off the Church lobby. People were excited and rushing from group to group, chattering excitedly. For whatever reason, I remained along one wall, not exactly aloof, simply watching the confusion and commotion.

I'm not sure that I can describe it well.

As I glanced about the room, it just happened, however improbably.

I was just watching the crowd, watching people as I often do, when suddenly my eyes were drawn to a crooked path. Oddly, I realized that it would wind it's way across the entire room, except for a couple of people blocking. If only Joy and Heidi...

Almost as the thoughts formed in my mind, Joy, grinning at someone's joke, stepped into the group she was talking to on one side of the pathway. A heartbeat later, wonderingly, I watched Heidi drawn into another fluid cluster on the opposite side.

And there was an empty path, clear across the polished tile, to the feet of a girl. Suddenly revealed, a girl to whom my eyes were irresistably drawn. A girl in a cornflower blue dress that set off her sparkling eyes, a small smile quirking her lips, her face gently alight. A girl, a moment that I would remember forever.

The instant remained just long enough to etch itself into my mind, and then that impossible avenue through the seething mass swept closed again. It was...such an impact. I was dumbfounded. Such a remarkable girl. Such an improbable parting.

So much awareness, so much potential.

All that I knew was that this was an incredible girl.

Boy, was it to become the rollercoaster ride of a lifetime. Talk about "much ado about nothing".

If only I hadn't been quite such an idiot...

But we're past that now.

Aren't we?