Love's Last Waltz

Love's Last Waltz

"Nine One One: What's your emergency?"

"Hey, this is Dan up here at Sliders. There is something kind of weird out here on the beach. There is a guy just standing out there, and he's been there in the same place for like an hour. He was out there when I got up this morning right after dawn".

"Sir, this number is only for emergencies."

I know that. But this guy has been standing there so long, and the thing is, he's holding a lady and....and....I think she's dead.

"I'll send someone there right away sir".

I had met Kelly right after college when I was just beginning my career as a civil engineer in Jacksonville, Florida. She was working in our office as a temp for Kelly Girls as they were called in the day. During that first coffee break we shared she and I laughed about her working for a name-appropriate company. That was the beginning of our romance. We dated for a few months, until she and I were both sure that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together.

We were married in 1965 with little fanfare on the day. We knew we had a deep abiding love and since neither one of us had any close relatives in the area, it was just the two of us at the courthouse that day, with some borrowed witnesses the judge's secretary had found for our ceremony. Our children, first Jack and then Amy, came along a few years later, and our days were filled with work and attending school functions, or after school activities with the kids.

As my career increased my income, we bought a house in Orange Park so the kids could be close to the school they loved. Our summers were spent at the beach house on Amelia Island just north of Jacksonville. I was still working in Jacksonville so it was a short drive for me to make each day, and all of us loved our house at the beach. We could watch the endless motion of the sea and spend weekends at play on the sand or look for fossilized shark's teeth after storms. When the kids were older, there were some evenings Kelly and I would stroll on the beach, and if it was particularly deserted, we would share a slow waltz with music only the two of us could hear. I loved holding her in my arms as our toes melted into the warm sand of the beach.