The love of his life...medium height, long dark brown hair with chocolate brown eyes to
match, tanned skin, a cute, upturned nose that crinkled and twitched whenever she was angry or frustrated. The minute they'd met, it was fireworks. Gregory House had been a tall, lanky, awkward young lad during his school years. Never had a steady girlfriend. Oh sure, there was a string of one night stands, if only to prove his manhood and boast another notch or two in his belt, as was typical in his day. But no one knocked him off his feet like she did.
From the day they first set eyes on each other, they were an item. They went everywhere together, shared the same interests...inseparable. When he wasn't with her, he felt empty...she made him whole.
They had plans for their future together. She wanted the whole enchilada...house with picket fence, two cars, two dogs and at least two kids. They sometimes walked along the Jershey shore, and spoke aloud their dreams for their future together.
Then, suddenly, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. All of it. The dreams, hopes, everything. Greg had received a phone call...she'd passed away instantly of a brain aneurysm. No one knew, not even she. At least she didn't suffer. Suffering was only for the living, the loved ones left behind.
He made a vow to her that he would somehow, someway, find a cure, so that nobody would have to be as miserable as he was, without her. That's when he decided to embark on a medical career. He'd really wanted to hang out at clubs and play his keyboard or guitar...she had loved music, and he taught her to play the piano.
A single tear made its lone journey down the cheek of Gregory House, as he fingered the decades old black and white photo of him and her in happier, healthier times. It was one of those photos you sit in the booth and get four poses out of. She'd kept three, he kept the one...he often took it out of his wallet and just stared at it. This evening, he sat in his office at PPTH, now a famous diagnostician with three underlings and an oncologist for a best friend.
Greg House made a fist and banged it on his desk, as he wiped the tear away, and put the photo back in his wallet. The love of his life everyone thought, was Stacy Warner. No one knew the pain he kept hidden deep down inside his very soul. He'd almost died himself of cardiac arrest, and was left instead with a bum leg, an infarction, which everyone blamed for his misery. But Stacy had said he was miserable before the leg, yet she had no idea why this was so.
Misery loves company, the old adage says. But the company he had kept after his beloved had passed away so quickly, wasn't enough. His misery hated company! No, the love of his life was the beautiful Theresa "Terry" Autry. And she was gone forever.
The above chapter is dedicated to the memory of my beautiful mother, Theresa.
to be cont'd.