Chapter 4 : the ring

Every time I was seeing her something was happening inside me. Was not that kind physical attraction that I knew so well and that when you are a young men could bring you distorting feelings of any kind that bring you generally to a romantic mistake. You have to remember that I was 42, and neither I had been religious or ever I had a religious attitude in my life, and with two marriages already behind me. So if I say it was a strange feeling believe me it was a strange feeling. The weirdest was the feeling I I could trust her. And this for me was the weirdest since I am the kind of not trusting anything at all. What was happening? I didn’t know but it was an extremely peaceful feeling with no roots. And of course if you add this to the fact that I found her beautiful you almost have your eggs and bacon served.

The day of her to leave arrived. I called her a part to give her something I had prepared for her, in the meantime I asked her name (you don’t know missionary first name you call them with their family name) since she was going to leave. She asked me to guess. I said: I don’t know. She said: come on, try. I said I didn’t know so she said: OK, the first letter is a C. and then? I don’t know I said. Is an h. The second letter of my name is an h she said.
At that point I felt dizzy. What was happening? Why it is happening? How come when I was joking with the other missionary about my imminent marriage I said that I didn’t know the name of my future wife but that her name would begin with Ch. How come I could have been right. I was absolutely joking. How many possibility you have to guess it like that, especially me that up to now whatever I guessed was true in life changed in being absolutely wrong. Maybe for you it is just ok, but I felt like had fallen in kind of conspiracy and the reason of it was starting to worrying me.
You are not able to guess yet? She said, OK I tell you, my name is Charline.

I gave her the presents I had prepared for her. In that presents I had put a letter and since she told me she officially was a missionary since the day somebody would have relieved her from that charge, for respect I told her to open the presents only after her missionary role would have been totally accomplished. She said that was ok but that it would have been hard to resist.

I was sad. I knew I was never going to see her again. I had been sad other times in my life so was not a big deal but that time was different. All it has been strange since the very beginning. The ghost voice was wrong, she was not going to be my wife. How foolish I had been to have thought that the ghost voice had any truthfulness in it. I didn’t know though how come and why I could have guessed right Charline name first letters, and the incredible found contact in the internet, and how come I ended up to have a very special feeling for Charline that after the very first time she knocked at my door I couldn’t even remember her face, and more why the ghost voice said the first time things I couldn’t care less of . I have deeply felt the Spirit, if of course was the Spirit, had fooled me for no reason. But I was a mormon.

And as any mormon would have done I sold myself the theory of a lie for a good purpose. I accepted the ghost voice fooled me to become a mormon. And I accepted this version since it was convenient to me and to my condition and it didn’t trouble the choice of my conversion. I was really becoming a good mormon.

I couldn’t remember if it was the next day of Charline depart or the same day, I went eating something with my missionary friends with which I always passed some good time. We were sitting in an African restaurant, I told them it would have been a pleasure for me to invite them, and I was talking with the missionary that baptized me mormon and it came out of my mouth I discovered who was my future wife, I knew her name from the beginning, and that I was so sure it was her I could have bought the engagement ring right away even though she had left and I had never had a chance to go out even once with her. The missionary told me he knew it was her. A certain thing started to focusing in my brain. I have told him I could have bought the engagement ring right now, I started to be steered, really it was a very weird feeling, I started to really be steered to go and buy the ring. I have told them I had to go. I was going to buy an engagement ring. That was…I don’t have a word for it. Could say crazy, but I was not crazy I was very calm, I should have been very worried of my state but I was so calm.

So let’s see the full picture now: I was sure I was not going to see her again, I was sure that the ghost voice had fooled me just to make my mormon conversion possible, I accepted the last message of the ghost voice like words thrown to the wind, and now I was going to buy an engagement ring for her.
Another good point to add at this very common situation: I was completely broke.

I was going to throw some money away. I didn’t have money and if I had some money at that moment would have served me better to pay my rent.
But I was already inside the jewelry shop. A lady come to me and ask what she could do for me. I said I wanted to by a ring. And without asking she just went on saying: …then for a young lady… I make your pardon, I said, who have told you is for a young lady? I am sorry I have just guessed she said a little embarrassed. Yes you are right, it is for a young lady, I said.
Remember that maybe for you it is normal to buy a ring for a young lady if you are young. They are not going to ask you if the ring is for a mature lady. Remember I was 42. So I thought the conspiracy was extending.

She showed me some rings and in no more than two min. I chose it. How? When I have seen the ring it burned me so much inside I said it must be it. Which size would be? She asked me. I said it would be the size of my small finger. Nobody has that size, she said, it is the smallest possible size. I said I was sorry since I didn’t have any experience on rings sizes
I said then it was better I got the one they had on display, if I had the possibility to change it if was not the right size.(If you are wondering: yes, at the end the size of my small finger happened to really be the right size) She said they would have changed me in 1 months time at the most. I said OK. One month was apparently plenty of time.
Then I asked the price. Of course it was expensive for me. She said if it was OK and I said yes. I gave her my credit card. I had a little hope and enough confidence the transaction wouldn’t have passed since I was already way out of the limit of my credit card. Sir, I think there is a problem with your card, I was waiting her to tell me, but she came with the ticked ready to be signed instead. That was it.

I went out of the store with a feeling of accomplishment and another one of having done a very, very smart move.

Having bought an engagement ring for a woman I had never went out for a date, that I had never asked anything, with which I had never had a discussion alone, that I couldn’t even guess if she had at least a slight interest for me, the more I didn’t even know if she was dating somebody. The only thing sure was that I was 19 years older than her. And about this point we can’t say it was really playing on my side. And of course I was not rich, nor famous, and I was suffering from a serious illness. Yes, to buy an engagement ring for her in this situation was the smartest move I could ever have made. Without any doubt the smartest move of all my life.

I could see what I had done was crazy, but it didn’t’ feel like it. It seemed crazy, but at the same time I felt I was accomplishing something. It is very hard to express this feeling since it is not a common feeling.
Something else was steering me. I was just along for the ride.

Next morning I got up. I was in the bathroom to wash my face thinking about how I could have ever done something like buying an engagement ring for a too young lady that for sure I was never going to see again, when all of the sudden came like a thought in my brain, but not really a thought. It was the ghost voice:” If she is really so important would you choose her or been healed from what you are suffering? ” (I was really suffering from something serious that was making my life very hard) No I stay with it. I said to myself.
It was just the beginning of something.

Then I went to sit on my couch, opened the Bible and while I was reading the scriptures a strong sentence came in my brain. This time the voice was less ghost than ever before. Without though having that kind of a strong unreal presence that could have made me think I was loosing my mind. And especially always protecting me somehow from the proudness of being able to feel a spiritual privilege of any kind. It had or gave me always the right measure of being felt just as very unusual, leaving a calm and strong aftermath in my inner being: would you give her up for me?
Right there my blood froze. I stopped. I didn't feel well.
Why this? Why it came out like that. No, this no.
Then I thought that without God we are nothing. And if we are nothing we can’t have anything. Without God I couldn’t have her anyway. I would have been just nothing. So I sat on the floor. And I leaned my head down. I waited about ten second and I said: “Yes I would give her up”.
My heart felt drowning. I felt deeply sad and at the same time relieved. I don’t know why the relieving feeling but this feeling was there with the sadness. Why I thought, but immediately another thought came in my brain: “Now that you said it show it to me”.
And I thought about the ring.

I opened the box and seeing the ring made my chest deeply burning. I will throw this ring in the river. This is what I was going to do when another thought came saying: “No. No in the river. Give it to a mormon missionary.”
I called the missionary that baptized me saying we should see each other.
He came at four o'clock. I explained him the story exposing myself to the normal judgment of being completely insane and I gave him the ring.
He was shocked. He didn’t really know what to say about it. He just said thank you. I don’t know why he said it but it was what he said.
“It is not a present I made for you”, I said, “So there is nothing to thank me about”.

This story had come to an end. And fortunately I had to say. I was already starting to be tired by all those things. It had been a mystery why she came at my door, why I went back to sleep when out of the blue come out in my mind…she is your wife, you are her husband, I love her and you have….”, why I found in a very improbable way my internet contact support, why I had to become a mormon, why I developed for her a deep feeling, why I had to buy an engagement ring just at the end to give it away to a missionary.

I opened my email. The day before I had sent an email to Charline, and by the way I was waiting her reactions to my presents. She had written to me. Yes, she gave me the confirmation that everything was over before starting. I could simplify all her writing saying I was clearly way too old for her. Then I said to myself: of course. But now just for the pleasure of it, and to excuse myself of my bad judgment, I wanted to make her part of all the ridiculous things I had been through, that pushed me behaving like that. At least to make me ridiculous and laugh about it. Yes, I wrote her all that happened to me, all, even the buying of the engagement ring, and the giving of it to a missionary. This I wrote so she could see at which point I had been fooled for no reason at all except my becoming a mormon. I had wrote also about the ghost voice the first time she came at my door, and “ she is your wife you are her husband I love her and you…”, I didn’t say the very end of the sentence though since now the very end of the sentence had to be forgotten for my convenience and from now on it would have been much better to considered it just as lie.

She wrote me back.

Apparently I was not the only one experiencing very strange events and coincidences.

to be continued in 2 h...