Everything Lora: Love Story

Today is Friday, the Day of Venus and also Valentines Weekend. I thought Id share a little love story that'll inspire the heart to open a little further... Ahh, love...

This is the greatest, TRUE love story ever told. It is the story of Muggy and Irish.

The world knew them as June and Frank, but to me, they were Muggy and Irish, my Grandparents.

Both were born in the 1920’s, and lived in the City of Toronto. Somehow they met in their teenage years, just like most strangers somehow meet. It was nothing short of some ordinary encounter, on some ordinary day. June, with her striking beauty and bold personality caught his attention, thus sparking what would turn out to be the most fulfilling tale of LOVE.

After a brief courtship, Frank asked June for her hand and heart in marriage, to which she accepted. Shortly after their engagement, Frank announced that he would be moving to the states to take a job in the mines. It would be a good job and he wanted June come. June was a very social person, who loved her friends and sisters Lillian and Shirley. They loved music and to go out dancing as often as they could. She had a fun life, and a career she wouldn’t abandon. She told him that if he took the job, she wouldn’t be waiting for him once he returned. I suppose he didn’t believe her, afterall love never dies, right? So he took the Job and June, as promised moved on.

In the meantime, she met Johnny, the ultimate bad boy, full of excitement and wild danger who stole her heart. While Frank was mining for oil underground, June was mining for love under the covers!

In 1954 June and Johnny married and shortly thereafter gave birth to my Mother. There life together was one of passion and intense, dramatic love. It consumed them and eventually destroyed their marriage. They divorced when my mother was three years old.

Life carries on, we grow and change and so does the world around us. But for Frank, there was only one woman worthy enough of his love. And that was June. He longed for her day after day, remembering the details of her pretty face, the sparkle of her light green eyes, the curl of her perfect red hair and the curves of her womanly body. He remembered her laugh and the fun they had, but mostly he thought of the life they “should have” lived together. When he returned home to find his love had gone, he was heartbroken at best. He never married nor had children of his own. Although he had female companionship from time to time, he never fell in love again, for his heart belonged to June. He made an honest life for himself in the City as a taxi driver.

25 years at the speed of molasses had passed by; a lifetime really. June had married and separated yet again. My mother grew to be a woman who also married and had two children of her own, myself included. And frank, he immersed himself in his job driving taxi.

A great deal of business came from picking up passengers from the race track. One day while waiting for the race to finish, Frank parked his cab and thought he’d listen to the ball game on his AM radio; check the oil, fluids and so on. When he finished, he set off inside to wash up his hands before getting back on the road, when from behind him he heard an unforgettable voice sing his name. With his heart racing and dirty hands shaking he turned to face her, and standing there before him, more beautiful then ever was June. They stayed for a while, basking in the familiar feeling of wholeness. Neither one wanted the moment to end, or to see the other turn and walk away again, so they decided to meet later and have a drink. It must have been a really good drink, because they never spent another night apart again.

I met Frank when I was two. We spent all the holidays, birthdays and our summers at “Muggy and Irish’s” cottage. It’s a magical place where some of my fondest childhood memories live.

Sadly, we lost June two years ago. Frank, now ninety-one, claims to be the happiest man alive, for he shared his life with his one true love.

And now with my own family and our summers up at the cottage we remember the incredible life, love and destiny of June and Frank. And after all, it IS true; love never really dies.