The summer before my junior year of high school, which would become one of the most interesting years of my life so far, I decided to get involved with the youth group at my church. Our church was somewhat small, with only a handful of teens, so one of my friends had asked some of her college friends from a local Bible college to aid us in a weekly meeting.
The time of worship and song was amazing, and I really enjoyed getting to know the people who were visiting us from the Bible college. In particular, I had always had my eye on one guy named Jordan. He had the sweetest smile and a very gentle speaking voice that I felt instantly attracted to. His love for God and his caring personality were the main reasons why I fell for him, but his looks didn’t hurt much either. We spoke briefly during our Friday meetings, but I didn’t get to know him as well as I wanted to.
During the first week of February of my junior year, I wrote a silly Facebook status that Jordan happened to see. He commented on it with a jokingly witty reply, and when I saw it my heart fluttered. I decided that I wanted to make a move, so I sent him a flirty Facebook message, to which he replied promptly with an equally flirty response. I knew that things were about to get interesting.
After Facebook messaging for a decent amount of time, Jordan gave me his cell phone number and asked me to text him so that it would be easier to keep in touch. I sent him that first text with such anticipation, and when my phone lit up with his reply, I found it hard to contain my excitement.
When we first started texting, we usually would talk about how our days went, as well as about events that were happening during the summer that we had met. No matter what we were talking about, I always found it a great joy to be able to interact with someone as sweet and caring as him. I soon learned that we had a lot in common; we were both Portuguese and French Canadian, we both loved to read and write and we both enjoyed watching The Office.
After about a week, we started talking about deeper issues, such as those that dealt with our families. He told me a lot of detailed and sad stories, but we had a mutual trust and respect for each other that made it easy for us to share our stories. One of mine in particular had caused me to get especially emotional, so he asked me if I wanted to talk on the phone. I was nervous; I really cared about him and wanted to talk with him, but I was self-conscious about the way my voice sounded on the phone and didn’t want him to judge me. I explained this to him before I decided to call him, and he promised to simply listen with an open mind and heart. So I dialed away, and after he answered and said hello, I responded back with “Hi” and a quiet giggle. All he said in return was, “I forgot how beautiful your voice is.”
We continued to talk on the phone for several weeks, in addition to texting and Facebook messaging throughout the day. Our evening conversations often lasted for six hours, and I rarely went to bed before midnight. There was nothing I wanted more than to talk with him. He was someone who I could finally be open and free with.
Later on in February, he came to my house to meet my mom and stepdad and spend some time with me. I made him cookies, we had dinner together, we took a beautiful and romantic walk in the park and we cuddled up to watch A Walk to Remember. It was an amazing night, and one that I will never forget. Being able to hold and touch the one you love in person is much better than just talking on the phone every day!
Soon after, during one particularly sweet evening on the phone about a month after we had started talking, Jordan told me that he loved me. I almost didn’t believe him at first, and once he said it I started to cry. I remember him asking me if I was crying and if I was all right, and I had to explain that they were just happy tears, and that I loved him too. Then he started crying, and eventually we were just laughing with each other. We played the stereotypical “you hang up first” game once it started getting late, and I remember him saying, “Why would I want to hang up when I have the most beautiful girl in the world who I love on the other line?” and I almost started crying all over again. Memories like those will never leave me.
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A few days after that evening, I got a text from Jordan saying that we needed to talk. From that, I knew what was coming next, since when someone says they “need to talk,” it’s most commonly followed by a breakup. He then called and said that we needed to end our relationship. “There is a girl out there for me that’s going to be my Cinderella and perfect for me, and you’re not her,” he said.
I remember my heart shattering to pieces instantly. I’m not quite sure why Jordan had so quickly decided to say this just a few days after he told me that he loved me. The mystery has become a constant source of heartbreak and an unexplainable guilt in my life. The unexpected turn that our relationship had taken was absolutely devastating, and I had no idea where to start picking up the pieces.
Following that conversation, I saw Jordan again at his Bible college when I went with my friend for a visit. It was incredibly awkward, and he kept giving me mixed signals during my visit, such as asking to get dinner and then going out with his friends instead, or wanting to hang out after the coffee house performance and then avoiding me instead. It was then that I knew I wanted to move on from him, but since he was my first love, part of me couldn’t let him go. Despite my resistance to hang on tight to him, I started to let go by unfriending him on Facebook and deleting his number from my cell phone.
Never could have I imagined that when I said goodbye to Jordan after my visit to his Bible college, it would be the last time that I saw him.
Since Jordan and I have mutual friends, I found out towards the beginning of my senior year of high school that he had moved from our home state of Massachusetts to Michigan to pursue a ministry opportunity at a church there. Most of me ached for him once again, but I tried to put on a happy face and congratulate him. It was easy to be happy for him at first, until I found out that he had met a girl in Michigan, who he was now seriously dating. Towards the latter half of my senior year, they were engaged, and once again I was heartbroken. I often asked myself what she had that I didn’t have, what I did wrong and why I wasn’t good enough for him.
Through his Twitter account, I found out that his wedding was set for May 18, 2013. I kept myself distracted that day by taking myself to get frozen yogurt and a new piercing. The following day Felicia, my best friend, and I went out to a flea market as well as to dinner and shopping for her birthday.
That night, I went on Facebook on my phone to see if anyone had “liked” the photo of Felicia and me at the restaurant that I had posted earlier. Instead, I saw a lengthy status update from a mutual friend that Jordan and I had, saying that Jordan had been killed in a car accident on the way to his honeymoon.
When I read the status update, my body instantly went numb. I stared at the screen in disbelief, and then silently handed the phone to Felicia. Once it was in her hands, my body started to react and I finally started crying. Since Felicia knew about our relationship, she too was in disbelief. We went back to her house and she tried to get my mind off of what I had seen, but it was impossible; all night long I received concerned phone calls from friends and family.
It was one of the worst nights of my life.
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The next day I found it impossible to keep myself composed. I cried uncontrollably over the smallest things. I had gone out for coffee and smoothies with my mom and my sister, and when the barista messed up my drink, I started bawling. My heart felt so tender that I didn’t know what to do.
In the wake of Jordan’s death, a memorial service took place in his honor at the church that he worked for in Canton, Michigan. This was a time for everyone that knew and loved Jordan to come together and focus on all of the wonderful things that Jordan accomplished while he was still alive, a more common Christian practice compared to a traditional wake and funeral service. Since I did not have the time or finances to travel to Michigan for the memorial service, and I felt hesitant due to possibly being unwelcomed, I decided not to attend. There was also a private burial at the local cemetery near Canton, which included his parents, their new partners, his sisters and his wife, Heather.
I did not know much about Heather when Jordan passed, as we were neither friends nor acquaintances. I do know that she has studied at Liberty University online, she was working with children at a daycare and that she was 21 like Jordan. From their engagement pictures, I saw that she had a sweet smile. I watched a news interview with her that was filmed in her home state of Michigan, and although she was crying during most of it, I got to hear her voice for the first time. The fact that I knew most vividly was that she also loved Jordan very deeply, and she too had been affected by his charm and wit.
I still cannot say that I am “over” Jordan, and I’m not sure if I ever will be, since you never truly stop loving your first love. I couldn’t deal with the fact that I had to lose him twice—first in our breakup, and now once again because of his unexpected and tragic death. I also mourned for his new wife, who had survived the accident with a few minor scratches. My heart aches for her, and I pray for her every day.
About a week after his passing, I decided to get a tattoo on my side that says, “A Whole New World,” which was Jordan’s and my song. I didn’t want to get a tattoo that was simply a memorial, since I didn’t want to have to carry that with me for the rest of my life, so I made sure that I got something that would serve multiple purposes. The tattoo reminds me that when Jordan died, my world became brand new through the realization that he is truly gone and I will never be able to mend things between us. It also reminds me that I now have the power to finally move on, knowing that it’s impossible for us to ever get back together. The tattoo serves as a reminder that every day is a whole new world, and that I need to treat each day as such and live it to the fullest.
If this experience has brought along anything positive, it’s the fact that I have learned how valuable life is. I wake up every day with expectation and thankfulness that I am still alive, despite the fact that Jordan is gone. He will always be an important part of my life. I had never been as emotionally and physically intimate with anyone else besides him, which made him all the more difficult to let him go.
I will never understand the reason why tragedies such as this happen in the world, but what I do know is that it’s time for me to start embracing the time that I’ve been given—and to start building my whole new world, which is looking pretty bright.
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