When The Heart Remembers

Amongst the whispering ocean and gentle pace of life in a small Maine coastal town, Anna Clarke lived as a quiet strength and a gentle smile made her stand out as a school teacher. Every day was calm, straightforward and was built around books, the jokes of her kids and the light scent of sea salt. Things had not always been peaceful at the time. The memory of her special love had formed the direction of her life and it remained with her through many years, wars, distances and time.

The events in the story of Anna and Michael start in 1953, a time when the Korean War was ending. She lived in Boston attending university to study literature as a 19-year-old. She was hopeful and flowers, a girl who thought long walks, letters by hand and real love could shift everything. Michael Hayes was serving as a 22-year-old Marine when he had a quick stop in Boston before going overseas. She bumped into him at the library while trying to grab the book Wuthering Heights.

She was amused after seeing what he tried to grab. Not a lot of people focusing on Brontë’s letter were Marines, she said with a smile.

The tall and soft-spoken Michael gave a quick grin. I guess I don’t fit the usual Marine mold.

They felt immediate chemistry with each other. While chatting over coffee about poetry and politics, Anna and Michael fell in love slowly, but both were sure this was what they should be doing. They were together every minute of every day for six weeks. While in college, they saw the snow fall over the campus, went dancing to jazz music in smoky rooms and shared kisses in brightly lit streets.

After that came his instructions: he would be deployed to South Korea. There were tears, lots of hugging at the station and promises held fast by nervous hands. Looking straight at her, he said, “I’ll see you after a while.” “I’ll talk to you again later.”

Anna waited. Every week, Michael wrote a letter sharing his experiences and what he felt. His messages contained imagery, gentleness and inspiration. Every letter from her was devoted and each word was kissed with lavender and written with a loving style. They imagined what their future life would be like, full of kids, by the ocean and where they would eat pancakes and do the crossword on Sundays after reading the paper together.

The letters suddenly stopped coming.

Weeks dragged on to months and Anna believed the worst. After that, we got a telegram. During a task, Michael went missing suddenly. Presumed dead. A body was not recovered. Not any closing statement.

Anna’s life came to pieces. She wore only black clothes for many months and even though her friends urged her to get over it, she did not want to. A little part of her still hoped that Michael would be true to his promise.

Time was passing. After graduating, Anna moved to Maine and started instructing students. Helen never entered a marriage. At times she dated some nice and decent men, yet none were as special as Michael. “I loved for a while,” she would answer when people wondered. They decided that was the last thing they needed to do.

Years passed. After the war was over, it became history, then memory and eventually people barely talked about it. As years went by, Anna’s hair got a silver hue and her eyes still shone quietly. She wrote poems next to her book pages and held onto the first letter Michael sent her which was hidden inside Wuthering Heights.

That spring, in 2004, almost fifty years after Michael disappeared, Anna got a phone call that would change her life.

A person identified as David Hayes, the nephew of Michael, called me on the phone. He told us that Michael was found safe and sound.

He was still alive after the Korean War. He was captured, as his injuries left him unable to speak and was sent to a North Korean prison camp, making records and identification difficult. Following the war, he was misdiagnosed as having memory problems and put in a veterans’ facility under another name. Decades passed and while going through state files, a nurse found a box of letters, containing one letter that mentioned Anna and Boston. Authorities confirmed his identity by tests on his DNA and from his military documentation.

She was not forgotten by him. He did not recall every little detail, but her name, her smiling and the smell of lavender stayed with him. The staff heard from him that he used to have dreams about her. “Even if I hadn’t a clue who she was.”

In the summer, she caught a plane to California and felt like a nervous teenager. She didn’t know if she’d meet a broken person. A stranger? That moment she realized why he belonged to her, as she noticed him in his sweater searching the sky in the garden. It was all due to him.

He got up slowly with tears in his eyes. “Anna?”

She went to him without hesitation.

The two people hugged each other, silently bringing all their memories together.

A few weeks after meeting, Anna returned Michael to Maine with her. For the rest of their lives, they lived in a simple cottage by the water and the sea and the fresh smell of pine and salt were always nearby. They walked slowly together, read stories out loud and played records from the vinyl era. It didn’t turn out as their younger self would have wished—it turned out better by being real.

Anna was there when her husband Michael passed away in 2012. Three years after that, she also moved to America. She said in her will that she wanted to be buried by his side and a line from Wuthering Heights etched in their stone which reads: Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Lots of people in the town talked about their story as proof of love’s strength, hope and how a patient heart can shine.