Gothic Riddles

Chapter 8

Riddle 1

My wife was attacked

Finding your soul mate is like discovering the missing link to your heart. When that special someone enters your life, has similar values, ideals, and beliefs and lives them as well, you discover that the two pieces of the relationship puzzle fit perfectly together. There are many souls you connect within this life. With some you feel an immediate bond you know will always be there.

My best friend Ted and I had been friends since high school. We spent a lot of time together. He was the best man at my wedding. His wife Sandy, my wife, and I were all close friends.

After six years of doing things together as couples and enjoying each other's company, my family moved to Tulsa so I could take a position of management with a major real estate firm. About two years later, Ted and Sandy moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, to be close to his mentor and to take advantage of a better opportunity to promote his work as a jewelry artisan. Even though we had all been close friends, we all moved about the same time and did not know where the other had gone. We lost contact.

Nineteen years passed. One day while cleaning out some drawers, my former mother-in-law found an obituary notice from a year earlier saying that Ted had died. In spite of divorce several years earlier from her daughter, we had remained friends. She sent me the obituary notice along with a note to inform me of his passing. I had not known.

The notice revealed that Sandy was living in Scottsdale. I called to express my sympathy. She told me that not only was Ted gone but her twenty-five-year-old daughter had died suddenly less than a year and a half before. In addition, her mother-in-law, father, and sister had also died. She had been grieving for a long time. I never called again, although I did send her a copy of my Life Skills book. She wrote a brief thank you for the book and made it clear she was content to be alone.

Three years later, on her birthday, I received a message on my voice mail. It said, "Hi, Larry. I was just thinking about you. Thought you might like to talk sometime. Call me if you want to!" Click! There was no name, no number, and a voice I had only heard once in more than twenty years. After listening to the message over and over, I decided that it might be Sandy so I called. It was.

Since the last time I had talked with her, I had been in a relationship that was suddenly over. A year had passed, since that relationship and I had spent most of my time focusing my energy on working on me. In the first six months, I saw a therapist, who helped me work through the pain of a changing relationship. In the first therapy session, I discovered I had no guidelines for one. a relationship. I had always done the best I could, but it never seemed good enough.

I became a full-time student of relationships. I read every book my therapist recommended. I began writing a daily journal. It was a painful process. As I started to feel better about myself, I began to write my own relationship guidelines. I gave them to my therapist for review, and he encouraged me to write more and publish them.

At the time Sandy called, my first relationship book, "How to Really Love the One You're With" was about to be released. We talked for about twenty minutes. She was thinking of dating again, and I told her I would send her a copy of my book when it was out.

On December 20th I sent the book. The day after Christmas I called her. We talked for about an hour about the book and relationships. Four days later, I accepted her invitation to go to Scottsdale for a brief holiday.

We were both very nervous about meeting after so many years. We talked about our fears, and the conversation defused our anxiety. When we met we spent a lot of time talking about the "good old days" when she and her husband and my wife and I had spent many happy times together. We acknowledged that even back then we'd had some kind of special attraction for each other, but neither chose to pursue it because we were both married to someone else. We visited some of her favorite places to eat and had a wonderful time just talking and getting to know each other again.

We both talked about how we both enjoyed being alone. We were very clear that neither she nor I was interested in a relationship together or with anyone else at the time. We were learning to be ourselves and could be alone without experiencing loneliness.

We both truly enjoyed each other's conversation; and as time passed, we got to know each other better on the phone. Several months later I presented a "Relationship Enrichment LoveShop" in the Phoenix area and took the time to see her again.

Sandy's daughter lived in Topeka, which was a four and a half-hour drive from Tulsa. Whenever she would visit her daughter, I would drive to Topeka to see her. She also made several trips to Tulsa.

The hours we talked on the phone, for months never suspecting we would ever be together, was a time of building the foundation of trust that healthy love relationships need to make them work. Finding the right person is more about being the right person. We were preparing for love. The walls of resistance were coming down.

We talked openly and honestly about our feelings about life, relationships, and each other. We discovered that we could express our own individuality and still choose to be together. The fears of our wounded hearts somehow melted away. When two whole people come together, they enhance each other's lives more than one can alone. As time passed we both became aware we were growing in love and toward each other.

A soul mate is not someone you need to be happy. A soul mate is someone you share your happiness with. After an eighteen-month long-distance relationship, we began to talk about being together, not really sure we wanted to give up our independence. Several months later, I moved to Scottsdale to be with her. She admitted to me later that when she saw me pull the big U-Haul truck into her drive she said to herself, "Oh, my! What have I done?"

I married my best friend's wife on June 8, 1996. God smiled at both of us that day. We are both confident that Ted smiled, too, and that we have his blessing. After the wedding, I moved permanently to Scottsdale with her. We have been a happy family ever since. But recently something very scary happened, Sandy was attacked by a burglar when I was on my way home from work. She stabbed him with a butcher knife and killed him. The police say it's an obvious case of self-defense. When I went to pick her up from the police station, she said, "When I heard the doorbell I thought it was you, but then a masked man jumped me as soon as I opened the door!", "You must've been so scared," I said, "but you're safe now." I hugged her tightly.

The answer of the previous chapter:

Riddle 1

When the beggar looked at the tall businessman, he said "Human". That means, the last thing that the businessman had eaten was a human.

Thank You and Good Luck for the next riddle. :)