Despite appearing to be an idiot on the surface, Teddy was an intelligent man. Extremely intelligent. He simply didn’t speak much to anyone other than me, and most mistook his quiet nature as idiocy.

They were wrong.

He attended a private Christian school as a child and continued attending such schools through high school. During middle school, he fell hard and fast for a yellow-haired girl who rode the bus with him. They played together, giggled as pre-teens often do, and eventually shared a seat on the daily bus ride to school.

She would be the first female he would ever buy a flower for.

In time, the puppy love turned to adoration. The adoration matured as they grew older, and they eventually fell in love with one another.

Head over heels for the girl with the golden locks, Teddy’s days and nights were filled with thoughts of growing old with her, and of having a life that mirrored that of his parents.

His parents were as old-school as old-school could be. Sunday dinners of chicken-fried steak and potatoes, church service, and speeches declaring the value of the almighty dollar were commonplace in the home Teddy grew up in.

Being a single child, he got his fair share of each parent’s attention. He ended up with his mother’s empathy and compassion, and his father’s work ethic. His frugality was self-taught.

What he didn’t, however, end up with was the yellow-haired girl.

One day, on the bus ride to school, Teddy rode alone. Heartbroken, he simply waited for the next day, knowing the love of his life would return. But, she never did. Teddy would find out years later what happened – but talk around the school was that her parents moved away on a moment’s notice.

She may have been gone, but Teddy’s love for her remained. The depth of that love allowed him to live through each day without succumbing to the offers from the women who found him to be the sweet and respectful young man that his mother so proudly taught him to be.

We peered out the window of the loft, knowing it would be our last summer in the downtown area. The street was lined with modified cars, hotrods, custom show bikes, and vintage junk. Wichita’s summer car show, Automobilia, attracted tens of thousands of people, and hundreds upon hundreds of cars.

Teddy, in addition to being an authority on motorcycles, was a walking, talking encyclopedia on all things cars.

“Let’s go have a look,” he said. “Last time we’ll have a chance to walk down there.”

The show dragged on for miles in three directions. The street beneath the loft was only the beginning. To walk the show, entirely. would take hours. With slight reluctance, I agreed.

We got on the elevator and rode down to the first floor. Side by side, we walked to the front door. As soon as I opened it, Teddy’s jaw flopped open.

He took his glasses off, wiped them, and then put them back on. “Heather?” he said, his voice laced with a hint of hope.

A yellow-haired girl stood on the center of the sidewalk admiring an old pickup truck. She wore pigtails, and a sleeveless sweater. Upon hearing Teddy’s voice, she spun in a half-circle. When her eyes met Teddy’s, they went as wide as the saucers Teddy’s mother served him dinner with.

She took long strides toward Teddy with open arms. Teddy, in turn, did the same. They met fifteen feet from where I stood, all but knocking each other down when they made contact.

He lifted her from her feet and twirled her in a circle.

She babbled an explanation of years ago, when her mother pulled her from school, and how she yearned to one day find Teddy, but that she couldn’t due to circumstances that prevented her from it.

Back then, there weren’t cell phones. In the absence of the internet and Google, a phone book was the only way to find someone’s telephone number. Some people preferred privacy and had numbers that weren’t listed in such books.

Teddy’s parents were such people.

Fate, on that day, brought Teddy back together with the girl he bought the flower for.

I learned that night that she still had the flower. She kept it for over twenty years, pressed in a book filled with her life’s hope and dreams.

My opinion on fate changed that night. I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn’t simply blind luck that brought those two lost souls back together.

When the night ended, Teddy confirmed his thoughts mirrored mine. The man of few words that he was, he simply looked at me and grinned a cheesy grin while he unknowingly stroked his beard. Then, he spoke.

“God provides to those who wait.”