Revision of Sweet William

[pannt51]

By: Patricia A. Turner


I think of him often, especially in the glow of twilight, as my mind recalls those long ago days when I was once a young lady as I look towards the old weeping willow tree down by the railroad tracks with its drooping limbs that had became a haven to me back in those days.
For it was there beneath the willow tree I would stand and gaze down the tracks looking for my first glimpse of my one and only true love to appear, his fine, handsome looks coated in a veil of coal dust after a long, hard day of work in the mines just down the way.
Spotting him just as the evening sun was sinking below the horizon, my heart would race with eager anticipation of that moment when he would stand before me. Oh how I wanted to run into his arms. But a proper young lady doesn’t make such a bold move, my mama had always told me, so I would just stand there waiting for him.
Then, stepping from the shadows of that old willow tree, he and I would stand face to face, our eyes searching the other as we both wondered at that thing people called love. Slowing reaching his hand for mine, my sweet William would pull me as close as he dared as our two hearts beat together. “My dear sweet angel” he would whisper as if he wanted not a single soul to hear his words. “Someday soon we will wed and you will be mine forever” he had pledged.
“Yes my sweet William, yes. I look forward to that day” I recall saying while so desperately hoping for a kiss from his blackened lips.
Ohhhh! Such sweet precious memories I have of those days beneath the old willow tree now standing deserted and alone, the railroad tracks now gone and only a distant memory.
So, here I sit this night an old and lonely lady left with only the memories of those days along the tracks when I would meet my one and only true love. Such sweet hours were those when he was young and I was too and time seemed to stand still for two people so in love.
As I gaze out the window, the old willow tree visible by the light of a full moon, I look down on the dazzling diamond ring on my left hand which my sweet William placed there one long ago night asking that I be his forever. Ever so happy and thinking that we had all the time in the world to explore our lives as man and wife, little could either of us know how soon forever was to be over.
With tears dripping from my eyes this night I can recall as if it were only yesterday the explosion which had ripped through the mines on a cold, snowy winter’s night, taking my love from me forever leaving me behind to grow old all alone.
But this night, I also am painfully recalling the last time I was to ever see my Sweet William alive. However, to tell of that night I suppose I should begin by telling of the very first time I saw Sweet William. He must have been every bit of ten years old and I had been eight years old. He and his family had moved to this coal camp only a few weeks before.
It had been on a hot summer’s day when I first saw William. He had been walking up the railroad tracks with an old fiddle case in his hand. Going only a short distance further up the tracks, he had sat down on the hot, gleaming rails and had taken the fiddle from the old, ragged case. Sitting there in the heat of the day he had played his tunes to the audience of the trees, the birds, and any other thing or person which may have been close enough to hear the music.
And, oh what mournful tunes he was playing. It was as if the tunes were coming from deep within a soul that somehow knew that he would not live to a ripe old age. Could he have, even at such a tender age, known that his demise was to deny him of a life he would long for later down that road of time?
As I look back to that last night I was to have with him, I can recall now a look that had been in his eyes that night which I truly had not taken note of amid our happiness. As he had slipped the ring onto my finger his eyes naturally been glowing with the love one could expect from an eternal love which I knew he held in his heart for me. Yet, at the same time there had been a sadness about his eyes that haunt me now.
But what I really suppose was the biggest clue I had missed that night was when he had made ready to leave my side. Instead of saying his usual “Goodnight my love. I will see you tomorrow.” He had held me close and kissed me deeply before whispering in a low voice, “Good bye, my love. Remember, I will love you forever.” Then slowly releasing my hand as his slid gently away, he had turned and walked down the tracks, leaving me alone beneath the old willow tree.
Had he somehow known that night that all our plans were for naught? Could the icy fingers of death have been tugging at his soul even then? I suppose that I will never know the answers to the questions which haunt me this night.
So, as I look out my window at the old willow tree I can once more see the handsome, young man I had fell so deeply in love with, as in the distance I can hear once more the mournful sounds of a fiddle playing just up the way as one more time in this lifetime my Sweet William is reminding me of the love between us that even time and death can never erase.