When I was 14 years old, I told a boy “I Love You” because I thought I did. When I was 18, I told that same boy “I Love You,” but that time I knew I did. I remember it like yesterday, but it was exactly 40 years ago today, June 4, 1983.

Keep reading as I share the short story I wrote that revolves around this love affair. It’s part of an anthology I co-authored with 20 other women entitled The Breaking Point. My chapter is called LOVE BROKE ME, which starts with this quote from Mother Teresa.

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We have not come into the world to be numbered; we have been created for a purpose; for great things; to love and be loved. ~Mother Teresa

Can loving and being loved actually cause a breaking point? I pondered that for quite some time as I contemplated what I deemed my undeserving place in this book. I wondered if I had truly experienced something so monumental that my life required a shocking reboot? It was only after I prayed about it that my answer was an outrageously loud affirmative. While it may not be the horrific or cataclysmic ordeal others have fought for dear life to overcome, you may be able to relate to my much more subtle, but no less powerful breaking point, which catapulted my life’s trajectory into places I never imagined.

My first breaking point actually occurred a week before high school graduation in the aftermath of a physical assault by a classmate. That near-death experience began with a skull fracture and ended with emergency surgery to remove an epidural hematoma (blood clot) on the brain of an eighteen-year-old.

That eighteen-year-old was William Collier. He was and still is the absolute love of my life. He is also my beloved husband of thirty-five years and counting. In my heart, I truly believe God saved his life back in May, 1983 because he was created just for me. He’s part of my story, and had he not gone through such a horrendous nightmare, we probably never would have gotten married. We fell in love as fourteen-year-olds in ninth grade. We also broke up in high school and would have gone our separate ways after graduation had God not allowed that dreadful misfortune to take place.

“I hope that boy don’t die.”

Those were the inadvertent words my mother spoke when she first heard the news about William’s assault that sent me spiraling out of control. We had grown so far apart that I didn’t even know what happened to him a week before our high school graduation. He was clinging to life when he was taken to the second emergency room after the first one (unknowingly) sent him home to die with an undiagnosed medical emergency. The blood clot was so severe that the brain surgeon was quite certain it would have killed him if he had not rushed him into the operating room to relieve the tremendous pressure building up on his brain.

Prior to that horrendous calamity, I didn’t think I loved him anymore even though he never stopped loving me in high school. However, the thought of losing him shattered my heart into a thousand little pieces. As I reflect on that awful period of our lives, I realize it was only by God’s grace and mercy that we were reunited on William’s “near-death” bed. I loved that eighteen-year-old boy more than I ever thought possible. Past disappointments and hurt feelings had to be put aside in order to receive the magnificent gift of his beautiful love for me. In turn, I could shower him with that same love.

Just as Mother Teresa said, we were created for a purpose, to love and be loved. The basic definition of love according to Merriam Webster is strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based on sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests. While it seems humanly impossible to actually define what love is, there is one thing I know for sure. There is no greater gift than love.

If we never open our hearts and allow love to prevail, we would miss out on so many wonderful things in life. William and I were on the brink of giving up on each other when love essentially broke us all the way down to a place where eighteen-year-olds rarely go. We spent the two weeks he was in the hospital recovering after emergency surgery getting to know each other all over again while reflecting on what went wrong with our relationship in high school. I never expected to open my heart so wide and let him in, but I did . . . right there in his hospital room where he actually had to get out of his “sick bed” to comfort me as my tears flowed. 

June 4, 1983

I remember that day and the look on William’s face very well. He was recovering at home by then. It was the day my eighteen-year-old self told William “I LOVE YOU!” I knew when I said it that time that it was forever. I had said it before as far back as when I was fourteen. This time though, this time, I knew deep on the inside God had filled my heart with a love for William that would never die.

As insignificant as that may seem, whether you consciously choose to fall in love or it happens without you even realizing it, the main thing to realize is that it is indeed life’s greatest gift. Loving and being loved sometimes requires overcoming a vast array of feelings to get to the point that you allow yourself to feel that way and trust the love being given in return.

While the world may debate whether true love exists, I encourage you to open your heart and expect it instead of doubt it. I simply cannot imagine my life without love, without William, without our children, and without the family that we have been blessed to share together. There is an idiom that says “And they lived happily ever after.” By definition, an idiom is just an expression, a figure of speech. Love is not a fairy tale; but if you open your mind to the idea of happily living in love, you may just find yourself there.

Although I don’t have a dramatic story of how I nursed him back to health once he was discharged from the hospital, I must admit that I smiled every time I heard his father proclaim that I brought William back to life! We were only eighteen, so of course we certainly didn’t have all the answers and would have been quite naïve to think otherwise. However, not only did we trust each other, but we also trusted our love for each other. It was something we cherished back then and learned to never take for granted.

Do I wish everyone could marry their high school sweetheart and live happily ever after? Of course! I know that is not realistic though.

Can I give you advice or simple steps to follow to ensure you have a long, successful marriage? Of course not! That’s not realistic either.

But what I can do is encourage you to follow your heart. There is no magic formula for meeting the right person or finding the perfect match. We are all imperfect, and what works for one person or couple may not work for the other. William and I grew more in love as time went on. Sure, we had trials and tribulations along the way, but marriage means trusting each other through the good and bad because it is worth it. Communication and honesty are vital components in a relationship. If you can’t trust someone to hold your heart gently in their hands without breaking it, save your heart for someone else who will take incredibly good care of it.

I know people long for finding true love. We were blessed to find it while still in our teens. When I thought about my life without William in it, I knew that no matter what it took, I would love him through whatever may come our way. How could I not love this person that I truly believe God made just for me? I couldn’t reject my love for him or his love for me.

Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own. ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

That may very well be the best definition of love that I’ve ever heard. It may sound cliché, but think about it. If you put the other person’s feelings above your own, and in your heart commit to making that person happy, doesn’t that bring you happiness as well? I have discovered the more I try to make William happy and put him first, the happier I am because I love to see him happy.  

Let me conclude with this prayer for you.

Dear God,

May those reading this wholeheartedly accept the fact that you created them out of love. Show them that they were created for a great purpose—to love you and each other. Help them to understand your love for them on a deeper and more personal level so that they can learn to share that love with others. Open their hearts to receive natural and supernatural love. Bless them to fully expect to love and be loved.  

In Jesus’ Name,

Amen

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Here we are, 40 years later, at our 40th class reunion last month.