Swan Song

"Yes..." is all Carol said to me, before falling back into her seat, a sad and distant look in her eyes.

HDK reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, and stared at me with a fatherly expression,

"Son...sometimes love hits you like a lightning bolt and sometimes it slowly envelops your soul, but the important thing is that you're in the game, son, you're finally in the game..."

Betrayed and Barbara each reached out to console me, but ride to south Philly was a quiet and somber one. Betrayed and I made vague promises to get together for a Flyers/Penguins game in the fall. But honestly, I didn't even know if I would still be alive by then.

And in the end, it was Carol who brought me back from the edge, reminding me of the progress that I had made over the weekend. Slowly and carefully she counseled me to believe a heart capable of finding love once was capable of finding it again. When she reminded me that our world tour for love with 1.28 billion chances could begin anytime I was ready, I finally had something to smile about...

"Perhaps I should start looking closer to home, before we fire up the Winnebago," I joked with her.

As the limo dropped them off at their house in the Poconos, they made me promise to visit them during the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays... "And we expect you to bring a date!" Carol pronounced.

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Three months have now passed and Brooke is still in my mind, but each day it seems to get a little easier. She's both a thorn that hurts, and an awesome memory that allows me to believe that one day I can find another love of my life.

After extensive tests, physically my heart turned out to be fine. My cardiologist chalked up the New York City incident to extreme stress. The term "broken heart" does not appear in any medical journals.

I've been dating one of the secretaries from the military base I used to work at... We've had couple of nice dinners together, went gambling at Hollywood casino one night, and have agreed to take a beginner ballroom dancing class together. She's fun and sexy and completely desirable, and although my heart doesn't leap like it did with Brooke, it does quiver a little...

Again in my life, I am reminded of the words of my literary hero, the sage and compassionate words he spoke to me in my limo ride of despair, "...and sometimes love slowly envelops your soul..."

Perhaps this is the one. Time will tell. But at the very least...at this moment in time, I am finally a man with hope, a man who is finally in the game of love and of life.