Love Whispers

My rusty, outdated Ford LTD sedan cruised down the narrow Delaware County, Pennsylvania roadway at a steady 50 miles per hour. Dilapidated, whitewashed wooden horse fences protected the pristine pastures from the crumbling asphalt shoulders—their bleached outlines whizzing past my peripheral vision like frames in an old 35-millimeter home movie.

David, a third-year law student, and I, a paralegal, occupied neighboring inner offices in a Philadelphia law firm. A few weeks prior, we started to get to know one another. The two of us grabbed a few lunches at a local deli. One time we joined the rest of the commercial litigation team for happy hour at a club in the city. That evening we parted on the platform. He slid into his burnt orange Pinto station wagon and drove to his apartment. I returned to my car at the end of the lot. Suddenly, a low voice entered my head.

This is the man that you are going to marry!

Clearwater Beach, FL

This whisper started as a simple wave in my soul. It gained strength in my heart and ultimately crashed into my head. Its force scared me. Initially I resisted the idea. When I did listen, the whisper brought David and me together. I became his wife, a mother and his best friend. I liked this whisper.

“Get married again,” David whispered to me from his hospital bed after a car accident caused a traumatic spinal cord injury. For 12 days I visited my husband in the neuro-intensive care unit and my lip reading skills improved. His body lay motionless.

I did not want to accept his generous message. I wanted to pretend I did not hear it. I wanted it to go away. It confirmed our impending separation. I preferred to stay together, even with his broken state. After David died, I sat alone in his silence.

Whispers are persistent. They beg to be heard.

Eleven years later I listened to what he’d whispered to me and bowed to David’s last wish. I gave joy permission to enter my life again. David knew I had more love to share. I remarried.

Whispers, our secret soul messages, fuel our lives with their clairvoyant power. Their force flows more freely if we nurture that special, personal place deep down inside. Keep the door ajar and the windows open. Listen for the whispers. Let them speak to your heart.

Kim