Her eyes. They were beautiful. That’s what I first remember. They were some of the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen.

At my parents’ farm in Pittsfield, Maine, on May 4, 1981, I knew I was really in love for the first time in my life.

That this young woman had come into my life, and loved me too, I regarded as a miracle akin to the parting of the Red Sea.

It was exciting. Feelings I’d never had before this day flooded over my heart as cascading waterfalls.