We met the summer of 1975 playing football together. I was 14 and he was 16. Alan was my first love and first kiss. We spent the next two years holding hands and kissing and dreamily looking into each other’s eyes. My parents were against the “infatuation” from the beginning. There was abuse in my home and I didn’t dare go against their wishes so we secretly saw one another. Alan had an argument with his father and had to move out. He called and told me that he would reach me by the end of the week when he found out where he would stay. My Dad found out we were transferred the next day. Two days later we moved out of state. I had no way of reaching him.

Alan showed up the day after we moved, saw the empty house and went to the post office for the forwarding address. He wrote to me continuously but received no response. I never saw the letters. My stepmother had hidden them. The day after I graduated (two years later), I found the letters he’d written me hidden in her dresser. I searched for him but he’d gone into the military and his family had left their home town, scattered within the U.S.

Twenty-one years after trying to track him down, I found him on Classmates.com and made contact. We were both single and began an internet relationship, knowing after only a few months that there was still something there between us. Three months later we met face to face again. Five months later we married and have been happily married for more than eight years. We have raised our five kids together with only one remaining at home. I love him and respect him more today than ever before. He was my first love and will be my last. He is my soulmate.