Young Love

Miss Kay's 3 year old preschool class - 1989.

"Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

They were three years old, not really young love. We had moved to Columbus, Mississippi and this was Nyssa's first experience at preschool. Nyssa is circled and so is the other half of this story, Christopher Hurt. Twelve boys and girls in her class; actually ten boys and two little girls, Nyssa and Callan.

At Halloween, Nyssa dressed as a dalmatian and I took her trick or treating all around our neighborhood, Sherwood Forest. A little boy and his mom were walking down the street in another small group of children and parents. His little voice yelled, "Hey, Nyssa!" Nyssa replied and he looked at his mom and introduced Nyssa to her. Only in the South would a three year old boy do this. As it turned out, his mom owned a little dress shop in town and they lived at the very end of our street.

The little boy next to Chris is Bjorn. He graduated with Nyssa from the Mississippi School for Math and Science. The little boy in the back row, sort of standing by himself with those hands in his pockets is Patrick. He graduated from the same high school as Chris and his pre-school experience is a story in itself.

The pictures above and below were made on Nyssa's fourth birthday. There is Patrick sticking his head in the picture above and Chris, the second from the right below. After that year, Patrick came back to pre-school but Chris didn't. We only saw him once in a while when driving by the house. But this was not to be the end of the story.

As you can see they met again. Come to think of it, I don't really know how this friendship started up. There were two cycles of Chris Hurt at any rate. One was the winter of 2001, for about two months and the other was the winter of 2002; same length of time. They started talking on the phone. Then he came up to our house to watch movies and she went down the street to his. He asked her to the Winter Formal at his school. (pictured below)

Chris had a band. His band was playing in a local venue the night of her Winter Formal in 2002. It was very weird. She met the group of MSMS students for dinner before the dance. They dropped her off at the band concert where she listened to music until time for the formal. I then picked her back up and took her on to MSMS where she met her actual date for the formal. Poor Chris. His girlfriend went to the dance with someone else.

I don't really think either one of them knew why they broke up, either time. They were both busy, both attended different schools, he had band practice, she had basketball and high-powered studies and the last time she was living in the dorm at MSMS. They just grew apart. I guess that's what you call it, right Nyssa? They still occasionally talk on the internet, just as friends.

I think the one thing about Chris Hurt that strikes me the most was how little he changed from his picture as a three year old to his high school picture below. He did need a haircut but he had the same eyes and the same smile.

So this was the story of Nyssa and Chris #2. (There were a whole string of boyfriends named Chris so we numbered them.)

Heritage Winter Formal - December 2001. (Picture by Stewarts)