Young Love

Conor ran into my grandparent’s house and immediately found my grandpa sitting in his rocking chair. He sprinted into the arms of the man he’s named after and declared, “I missed you!!” As my grandpa stood up, Conor noticed the string of a red cellophane balloon above him.

“I pway wif bawoon?!?!”

They brought the balloon to the living room and we took turns lifting Conor to reach the white string as he kept letting the balloon drift to the ceiling.

“Whose balloon is that?” Norah asked.

My grandpa got a twinkle in his eye and gave a boyish grin. “I got it for great-grandma for Valentine’s Day.”

When he looks at my grandma I see a glimpse of his 17-year-old self falling head over heels in love with his high school sweetheart. 

Brett and I started dating when we were 17 too. We got married 5 years later. For a long time I was self-conscious of our young love. I felt like I needed to prove it was real. That we really did find the person we wanted to spend the rest of our lives with before we were able to vote or buy alcohol. 

But my grandparents always took our young love seriously.  Maybe because it reminded them of their own. 

For our one year dating anniversary Brett gave me a small cross necklace. When I showed it to my grandma she said, “Your grandpa gave me something like this in high school. I wore it on my wedding day. Maybe you’ll wear this on your wedding day too.” 

I still have that necklace, and in 40 years maybe my high school sweetheart will buy me a red cellophane balloon. 

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "280 Words".