Finding someone you lost contact with
Find someone you lost contact with. Maria xxxx from Gothenburg-not seen since 1963.
John’s story. Maria, where Are You Today? My God, I am now age 76!
Not that age or appearances matter. I just want to see you again!
Find someone you lost contact with many years ago
I met her along with her friend on a beach in sunny Eastbourne, Sussex, England in the early 1960s (1962ish) when I would have been 18, and she of a similar age.
I was on the beach with a friend and somehow managed to strike up a conversation with these beautiful young Swedish ladies with a killer line “do you know what time it is”?
It worked but Maria had to leave for her work in a guest house and not being very confident I asked her friend if she would pass on a message. If there was a positive response Maria would leave a jumper in her window. Joy of joy, the jumper was waiting.
A blossoming Relationship
Connection with my Swedish beauty. So began the most wonderful THREE months of innocence and joy. We were both working during the day, but we saw each other EVERY evening during that time.
We walked, we talked, we romanced.
I especially remember our “Butch Cassidy” moment as I took her home sitting on the crossbar of my bike “raindrops keep falling on my head “etc….heady times…my first love which will live with me forever. We had our own private bubble, it seemed a natural place for both of us. Even now when I walk near the sea I can feel her presence and the breeze ruffling through her hair. She was my Svenska Flicka.
What went wrong? We wrote to each other over the following months and I had an invitation to visit her in Sweden but I know that I was very immature and I sense that my letter writing skills didn’t show me off in the best light.
Also, I had made no plans for her return, I just expected it to happen: naive or what? Maybe it was none of the above and probably I will never know, will I?
(1963-ish) She did return the following year
We arranged to meet at Eastbourne Station. That was the last time I saw her when she announced she was seeing someone else.
I was heartbroken and just walked away without saying a word. Life went on and slowly I was able to find a “happy memories place” for our romance and was able to look at our photos with a feeling of joy for the past.
2020: I am now 76 and the time has come for a clear-out
Old paperwork and photos. I started looking at those photos again but this time with more than a casual glance. Now I realise what an important and significant episode it was in my life. Just found myself dangerously meandering and entering the “if only, what if” world.
This slowly filled my mind, and I was having a strong urge to trace Maria and find out how life had turned out for her. Basically I felt a need to round off what had been a wonderful relationship.
Amazing that over 58 years these feelings had been tucked away and have now inexplicably flooded back into my life so energetically. The brain is a strange place and how unpredictable the past is.
If Maria or anyone who knows of her read this, I would be overjoyed to have the chance to make contact and possibly exchange stories of our lives… first loves are so powerful!
