Witness to Withness

A New Kind of Love

In my wildest dreams, I did not think I could know love and friendship from a woman. After all God gave over to me a woman to date and soon after that I became emotionally ill. She became a thorn in my side. In the beginning of our relationship we would enjoy time at a place called "the Mug And Muffin"' There was a peck on the cheek and I was on cloud nine. Only a few months later in the course of going in and out of the hospital in the presence of people I cared about called me a snake. Nothing felt worse and the remembrance of that painful steered me away from opposite sex attractions until I met Lori Mahoney. Our relationship had been light. For some reason she laughed in the course of us working together. I did the unthinkable and asked her on a date. It felt right and thus began a short Burger King romance that impacts me to this day.

At Burger King we wore uniforms so it was difficult to know who the person underneath. Lori invited me to join her at her parents country club and as I arrived it was as if heaven came down to greet me. We had a very respectful date. It was clear that she was in a totally different world. She was Catholic and I was Protestant, she was rich and I was very poor in comparison. She was a chemistry lab rat and I was a minister. Yet I discovered that is what she liked about me. There were no more dates but a two year correspondence of illuminating mutual support was more than I could have asked for. If that was love was like, I looked forward to knowing more about it. Lori never found out about my tortured past of emotional illness. She never saw me through that lens. She introduced me to her mom and dad as Gary and that was all that mattered.