A sign of caring

©Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

In an ideal happy-reality scenario, girls grow up to be their daddy’s princess. They then spend most of their mature lives seeking a prince who remotely resembles the king that raised them.

Perhaps that is a mistake, though.

We set off in life with high expectations. Which often lead to bitter disappointments.

But every so often, someone comes along who surprises us pleasantly. And in the very moment when you’ve given up hope, and surrendered to the belief that what you long for does not exist.

It’s the details that make the difference. Like a simple sign that you care.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

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The things that matter

@MCD

The day she met him she had found a penny on the way to the store outside of which they were to bump into each other. She thought it was good luck and gave it to him for their three-month anniversary. She told him it might be silly, but she enjoyed looking out for all the small details that for her made a difference. She kept souvenirs and memories of their outings, even dried-up flowers he gave her, in a small box in her nightstand. She felt they granted a special energy to their relationship and strengthened their bond.

He didn’t really pay attention to the penny and it got lost. Or he might have even spent it somewhere; he didn’t remember. He wasn’t the type of person that gave attention to material goods. He felt people and the time spent with them were more important. He tried to offer her as much of his free time as he could. And he tried to please her as much as possible.

But something always seemed to go wrong.

On the day they moved-in together, she found a penny outside his door gate. She gave it to him as a token that it would bring them luck in their new endeavor and in sharing their lives. She found it a few days later still on the TV table where he had left it. She smiled, thinking that he valued it too much to spend or lose. But a few days later, the penny disappeared. And so did her optimism.

He wasn’t too much of an organiser, often leaving things lying around the house for days, even scattered between tables and drawers. He complained lack of time was the perpetrator. And he could not understand why she made such a fuss over insignificant stuff.

She felt he didn’t care enough to cherish the things she brought him.

He felt she was becoming too quirky, too hard to satisfy.

She was about to leave in tears, when he walked into the bedroom, opened the top closet door and brought down a rectangular silver frame. He handed it to her and said, “I pay attention to the things that matter; and that means having you. That’s all I need. That’s all I want”.

He had framed the note where she first wrote to him that she loved him.  She had given it to him the night of the day she gave him that first penny.

Every story has two sides, you just have to have a mind that is open enough to see them both.