A Good Thing

by Stacey Evans Morgan

  Although I didn’t win the award, I was honored to be nominated and in addition to the instant recognition as a professional travel blogger, I had been blessed with amazing, all-expense paid trips around the world, with the task of simply writing about my experience.

  Paris was a spectacular place to write about, but I believe it was my personal experience of embracing love in the city of love, that touched the hearts of readers worldwide. I’d heard that women traveling alone to Paris had been a travel trend lately, and many of my readers expressed how inspirational it was to read about taking a leap of faith, loving yourself before love could find you. I just wrote from the heart.

  Almost a year later, I was thrilled to witness another sensational sunrise over Paris. As I sat up in bed, I felt inspired to write a quick blog entry:

  The biggest coward of a man is to awaken the love of a woman without the intention of loving her back.” - Bob Marley. So… EROS caught me off guard in Paris. When I look back to last fall, I thought my life was falling apart.

  Flashback images of Jonathan breaking off our engagement, me giving back the ring, my pity party/tear-fest while cutting up photos of that man, crossed my mind as I continued to type. Actually, my life was falling into place and into a true understanding of love. Agape, Philea, Storge and now Eros and as the new fall season approaches, I have fallen in love with a man who captured my attention at first sight. As crazy as it sounds, I believe our souls definitely danced once upon a time. I wanted to marry that man right there, under the lights of the Eiffel tower.

  I was interrupted when Kendall emerged from beneath our comforter, kissing my shoulder and neck. Somehow, I managed to finish my thoughts on the page.

  But we decided to wait nine months before returning for our destination wedding in the city where our love was confirmed.

  There was a knock at the door. I smiled at the vision of my husband hopping out of the bed to answer the door as I continued to type.

  My parents love Kendall and his dad embraced me fully. I traveled with him as he released his mother’s ashes in Marseilles and I seem to feel her love smiling down on us as well. I guess you could say, we decided to love by faith and not by sight and figure out the rest as we go along. I think God knew exactly what He was doing bringing us together throughout the various seasons of the past year and now...

  Kendall climbed back into bed with a tray of covered dishes. “You’re going to have to give that blog a break. It’s time for breakfast... with your husband,” he insisted as he closed my laptop. “My husband… I like the sound of that,” I told him as I set the computer on the nightstand. He nibbled and kissed on my shoulder as I uncovered the dishes. “Pancakes!”

  “You said you liked pancakes,” he reminded me of our flirty conversation on the ski lift in Canada.

  “I love you or shall I say, J’et’aime, beaucoup.” I tried to sound as authentically French as possible.

  “Ah, je t’aime, aussi,” he responded, though he didn’t have to say that. I knew he loved me, too.

  We dug into our sumptuous breakfast in bed. I fed him a strawberry as he cut into the pancakes and teased me with a slice dripping in syrup. He took pleasure in feeding me a few bites, then kissing the syrup off my lips. Soon, that breakfast tray was on the floor as we became each other’s breakfast in our Honeymoon Suite.

  Spring...

  Eleven Years Later

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The classic Crystal Ballroom of the Millennium Biltmore hotel was filled to capacity with celebratory guests as my parents sat proudly at their Sweetheart Table under a banner that read: Happy 50th Anniversary Ramona & Alan. The disc jockey for the evening played the requested song Soul Dance as he caught the attention of the room with an announcement.

  “Congratulations on fifty years of love and marriage, Dr. and Mrs. Alan and Ramona Davenport. Show some love as the couple takes the dance floor!”

  My mom and dad, now in their 70’s and still jazzy, took their time walking to the center of the room as the guests applauded. As they began their slow dance, Mom waved over at me and Kendall, signifying the song playing.

  Kendall blew a kiss of appreciation to his Mother-in-Love for choosing his mother’s song for their dance. After a few minutes, the DJ welcomed the guests to join Dr. and Mrs. Davenport.

  “Well, Mrs. Hampton, your parents look like they could use a little company on the dance floor,” Kendall spoke softly in my ear as our two daughters, Zoe and Carmen chimed in.

  “Ohhh, this is Grand-mere singing,” seven-year-old Zoe said. Her nine-year-old sister and grandmother’s namesake encouraged, “Daddy, why don’t you and Mommy go dance with Grandpa and Nonna?”

  “Yeah, Daddy,” Zoe nudged at Kendall. “Yeah, Daddy,” I whispered echoing my child.

  He kissed Zoe’s forehead and extended his hand to me. “Shall we?”

  As I took my husband’s hand, I reminded Carmen to keep an eye on Zoe while hanging at the table with Auntie Sunny and Uncle Ron.

  “Quit being bossy and go dance with your husband, girl,” Sunny yelped while holding the muscular arm of her tall and gorgeous husband of two years.

  After several failed attempts at finding love on Match.Net and BlackLove.com, Sunny was inspired to host an evening of cool, single people gathering for dinner at her place and called the event “The Mingle.” She was optimistic that there were still a few good men and women out there who were simply having trouble meeting each other. She would often say, “I’m amazing so there’s got to be my amazing counterpart out there somewhere.”

  So many of our single female friends were convinced that all of the good men were either married or in relationships, and our male acquaintances felt that the majority of women out there were unable to see a good man staring them in the face.

  Sunny decided to take that concept of ‘staring good in the face’ and create an evening where at the very least, a group of good men and women could come together, not to meet a mate, but simply with the goal of meeting likeminded individuals. The goal was for people to leave encouraged and if they got a phone number, that was a bonus. That one event was so successful, Sunny, a natural-born hostess who loved showing off her domestic skills in the kitchen as well as impeccable taste in interior design, began hosting a series of once a month Mingle events where an even amount of women and men were invited to come prepared to enjoy dinner and a team sport activity, such as a competitive game of Taboo.

  One of the Mingle events was a Soul Food Sunday potluck dinner theme where guests were instructed to bring something for the family style dinner table. With so many friends thousands of miles away from their hometowns and families, Soul Food Sunday was a big hit among many of the homesick crew. There was nothing like walking into a home to the smells of your favorite comfort food greeting you at the door, the sounds of kitchen chatter and a Sunday football game blaring from the TV. Yes, that Soul Food Sunday was the most successful Mingle gathering Sunny had hosted and when Ron Collins arrived as a guest of her friend, Mark Houston, it was a day she would never forget. Ron had recently relocated to L.A. from Seattle, Washington. He and Mark met at University of Washington, more affectionately known as “U-Dub” to them and their frat brothers. When Ron’s job transferred him to California he immediately reached out to his frat who always rolled out the red carpet when he came to visit and was sure he would help him get acclimated to L.A. life in no time.

  When Mark, who is Sunny’s godbrother told him he wanted him to roll to The Mingle, Ron was hesitant to attend the event. His first inclination was to think it was going to be more of a match making scenario where desperate women and men would be working hard to land the one.

  Mark insisted he check it out, come meet some cool folks and just chill. When Ron and Mark arrived, the guests were laid back, sipping drinks of choice, some huddled in deep conversation while others preferred the requisite trash talking over a game of Dominoes and Spades. Mark led the way to Sunny’s spacious and newly remodeled ki
tchen where she and a few other ladies were setting up the food buffet style. He casually greeted the women, then he and Ron proceeded over to the stove where Sunny was focused on cooking and once they locked eyes, it was the beginning of Sunny and Ron’s love story.

  As Kendall and I joined my parents and the other couples on the dance floor, the music changed to an upbeat song. It was an official party where everybody including Mom and Dad started getting their boogie on! Karma and her date Eric danced their way over to us.

  “All right now, look like you love each other!” Karma joked over the loud music.

  Kendall spun me around followed by an unexpected dip and planted a big kiss on my lips as we continued to dance. Our daughters, who were used to our random public displays of affection, ran over to us, pulling Sunny and Ron with them to join in the dance.

  During the toast portion of the evening, my father stood before the crowd, raised his glass and proclaimed his devotion and gratitude for fifty years, in good and bad times, unconditional love with his queen, Ramona Camille Davenport.

  Amidst the cheers and clinking glasses, my brother Justin, took the microphone from dad and shared another word of salute to the couple, and then called on me.

  When dad gave us a heads up days before that he wanted his children to do a toast, I intentionally did not prepare a speech as I wanted to be in the moment. As I looked around at all of the faces in the room, now I wished I had a prepared speech to read.

  The room fell silent in anticipation of what I would say and as I looked over at Kendall who offered a reassuring wink, I felt at ease, grabbed the microphone and offered up words from my heart.

  I glanced at my adoring parents, then looked around the room at my good friends and family, my children and my husband and suddenly, I felt inspired by a mash up of Proverbs 18:22, 1 Corinthians 13 and my own poetic flow: “Love is patient, love is kind, some might even say love is blind and real love is hard to find. I disagree with that last part, because when he who seeks, finds a wife, that goodness makes you want to sing.

  But it goes both ways because when you open your heart and decide to let love find you, that is truly a good thing. Congratulations, Mom and Dad and thank you for being an inspiration to us all.”

  As I hugged my folks, Kendall and the girls joined us for a group hug. The DJ started the music again and my girls whisked their grandparents away to dance while Kendall stood staring at me. He raised his glass, tapped it against mine, kissed my forehead and whispered, “Beautiful Pilar… my good thing indeed.”

  We locked our arms and sipped the champagne as people continued dancing around us as the celebration of love continued.

  Fin.

  Stacey Evans Morgan is a television writer and producer with credits on scripted series such as LOVE THAT GIRL, THE PARKERS, ONE ON ONE, JAMIE FOXX SHOW and live programs The NAACP Image Awards, The Gracie Awards and DNC Live 2016. She is also a published poet, essayist, motivational speaker and President/CEO of SEM PRO Inc., a production company creating content for TV, film and new media platforms. Stacey resides in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter where she continues to #writethevision and as an author, she is proud to present A GOOD THING, her debut novel.

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