John

We never would have crossed paths if I hadn't been jonesing for a cigarette. If his guitar-playing friend hadn't asked him to come out to Dupont that night, we would have remained ignorant of each other's existence. If he hadn't been smoking at the exact moment I passed by, I wouldn't have noticed him.

Fate, coincidence, god -- whatever name you want to put to it, all the elements were in the right place at the right time for an anal-retentive Ivy League grad and a high school dropout army boy to meet on July 20, 2000.

Before that day, it seemed as if my life had been dark for a long time. I would walk home after my night shifts at Olssons, and the night seemed endless and omnipresent. The world consisted of work and home. It wasn't joyless because there weren't any emotions in it. I wasn't speaking to my father. I avoided talking to my mother. I told people that I thought marriage was an outdated institution. My heart was closed. I couldn't even see what I was missing.

Today, I am on great terms with my father. I'm slowly mending things with my mother. I have hope that someday I'll meet someone I want to be married to. Sometimes my heart feels so full of emotions that it hurts. My brother thinks I'm more relaxed, and I am. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm not the tensed up, closed person I was.

When someone loves you completely and totally for who you are, even at your worst, you can't help but change. You can't help but learn from them.

The great lessons in life aren't the ones you get from lectures. You don't learn them by hearing and you don't teach them by telling. John would be the first person to say that he doesn't know much, that he couldn't imagine having anything worthy of teaching anyone. Well, on this matter you really don't know anything, Pokey, so shut up and listen.

Friends, I know what I seem like. I'm basically kind. I'm responsible. I try to be helpful and I try to do the right thing. I like people to compromise and I like people to get along. I hate confrontation. I love dogs. I worry and I am anal-retentive. I am sarcastic at times, sometimes to the point where it stings. I can be silly. I baked a good cake or two. Often I'm shy.

All very nice. But missing the point. I was all these things to John and much, much more, and the much, much more was much, much awfulness. Around John, my anal-retentiveness turned into snappishness and irritability when things didn't go the way I wanted them to. My kindness? Ha! I was forgiving to all people but John. I was often selfish, choosing not to spend time with John's friends when I didn't want to, even though he spent countless hours with mine, even when he didn't want to. I second-guessed him, made him feel bad about his mistakes, judged him unfairly for not having skills or talents that he never had a chance to acquire. I didn't communicate with him, staying silent or sulking instead while he coaxed me into dialogue.

There wasn't a week of our relationship where I didn't cry for some reason or another -- and I do mean EVERY damn week. Frustration, sadness, irritability -- you name it, I cried about it. And every single time, every SINGLE time, even though I had acted prickly or angry or sulky or insulting -- in other words, behaved childishly and churlishly -- John would pull me to him and whisper, "Don't cry, baby. It's okay. Don't cry."

On John's 23rd birthday, I took him to Marrakesh. No, not the Moroccan city, the DC restaurant with the belly dancers that my friends took me to on MY 23rd birthday. It was just the two of us. We had a great time. Unfortunately, at some point in the evening, I started feeling like John wasn't showing enough appreciation for the dinner. You would think that one year into a relationship I would be able to discern whether my boyfriend liked something or not. (He did like it.) You would think that it would be enough to do something nice for someone you love. But ah, my friends, how little you know me. Insecurity took over and I capped a lovely evening by acting hyperactive, withdrawing, and then bawling. Happy birthday, honey! Bewildered, John nevertheless comforted me, calmed me down, and always referred to it afterwards with a smile.

There were naysayers from the very beginning of our relationship. How could you not doubt? John and I are from different cultures, different socio-economic stratas, different educational levels, different ethnicities, different EVERYthing. I went to posh private schools; he went through the school of hard knocks. I read Dostoevsky and Dickens; he read people with spot-on accuracy. As a teenager I took lessons in flying, piano, and horse-back riding; he took lessons in skateboarding, punk rock, and drugs.

But John and I are alike in that it takes a couple meetings for people to really see us. And some things, obviously, are only seen by significant others. So I'll tell you now what I never overtly said before: John was the best boyfriend in the world. He always kept close to me at any place where I might feel uncomfortable, be it at an army function, or at a bar with his friends, or in a huge electronics store in the video game section. He never laughed at me or teased me if I hid my face during a particularly gruesome scene in a movie. He would stroke my hair and tell me when it was over. He wouldn't take off the little gold ring he took from me one summer, even when a superior asked him scornfully why he was wearing it. (He answered, "Because I love my girlfriend, sir.") He followed Buffy the Vampire Slayer because my friends and I liked to watch it.

In October 2001, John was there when my father came to town to make amends with me. He was the one who gently reminded me, "He's your father, baby," when I debated whether to spend a day with my dad. Later that same week, John's father died. Even in his terrible grief, he was able to say, on the very day he found out: "At least I got to know him for 10 years. At least I have that." And even now, I marvel at it: what kind of person can say that? Can recognize and appreciate the good even in his darkest hour? Someone with strength and humility beyond most people, including myself.

When John was in the army and had to be in at work at 5:30 am, he always dressed quietly, put his change and keys in his pockets, and then, without fail, knelt down beside the futon to give me a kiss and whisper, "I love you." Every single time.

Perhaps it's easy to be this tender and generous and kind to someone who is the same. Easy to be a saint to a saint. The amazing thing is when you're a saint to a decidedly unsaintly person. When you can be this tender and generous and kind to someone who is difficult and irritable and prickly. John knew all my bad qualities -- the silences, the inability to communicate, the crying, the doubt -- and still loved me.

Because I doubted too. I doubted us from day one. I doubted our longterm viability as a couple (yes, I used those words exactly). And though it must have pained him to no end to hear me voice these doubts, John reassured me, over and over. Once, early on in our relationship, he told me that if we did break up some day, he'd be able to walk away happy to have known me and to have learned from our relationship. He pointed out the good things in our relationship, things that I would gloss over in my negativism. His faith in us buoyed me through the rough times. I depended on it, not just to keep our relationship going, but to keep me going. Knowing that John loved me gave me strength. In my first two months in Seoul, I carried his dogtag with me everyday. Just touching the outline of the metal in my pocket helped me get through the loneliness, the strangeness of it all.

If I have any regrets, it's that I wasn't the same vast reserve of love and tenderness that he was for me.

John, thank you for being part of my life so intimately, so lovingly, for these past two years and nine months. This entry is for you. This is for you because you showed me that someone can be deeply, profoundly hurt, and yet have the courage to love again. And not just to love but to reach out a hand, again and again, after getting slapped back, over and over. This is for you because I was and continue to be a difficult, exacting, judgmental, selfish person, and you knew this more than anyone else and yet loved me all the same. This is for you because you've given me something so many things to aspire to: generosity, tenderness, patience, integrity, and a huge, huge capacity for love. I can only hope to love someone like that someday. This is for you because you might someday believe these things about yourself if I tell you enough times, if I shout it out to the world. This is for you because I hope someday that I can appreciate the amazing things about you to the extent that you deserve. This is for you because I think you are more than just the best boyfriend in the world. I think you might be the best human being in the world.

Helen and John: July 20, 2000 to March 25, 2003.