Rita

When I was 12 we moved to south Texas from Indiana. The first day there I went to a rodeo and was being introduced to all the local kids and I saw a group of cowgirls standing behind the bleachers and one in particular stood out. She was tiny, with skinny little arms and legs but red hair down to her waist, and huge gleaming eyes that were stunning. I asked the guy I knew; "whose THAT?" "oh, you mean Rita? You want to meet her?" ah, yeah. So he took me over and introduced us. It was love at first sight. Only it was more of a familiarity. Its like I just knew this girl. She seemed so familiar already somehow. I left our first meeting with Rita's phone number and address and an invitation to the house. The rodeo was for the area kids and every weekend we would see each other and I got dad to drop me off at her place sometimes and we would go with the older kids who could drive and just hang out and socialize. Rita was adorable. Funny, highly intelligent but modest and easy going. She never showed her temper. Always optimistic, pleasant, reassuring. Everyone loved Rita. She could get away with murder. She was the second of six sisters and dad didn't have any boys to tell off colored jokes or teach equally risque little rhymes and songs. Which she went to school and taught the other kids and when they repeated them they got in trouble. "but Rita told us!" yeah. That was believed. Little miss perfect. The teachers' pet. Over the next couple of years I came to adore Rita. Everyone adored Rita but she was so humble that she just thought it was cute and sweet the way they fawned over her, but didn't take it seriously. She never was one to have to try to be popular. She never joined any organizations or clubs. She was perfectly happy, hanging with friends, riding her horse, working on the family farm, helping take care of her 3 baby sisters, a decade younger than her, who she called "The Babies". Playing with them was so sweet. Rita was the perfect daughter and big sister.

My mother met her the first time about 2 months after we met. We were in the grocery store and there were Rita, her mother and her littlest baby sister. She was holding her while mom shopped. 18 months old, and she clung to Rita. Absolute adoration. My mother reached for her, she was good with kids, and the baby just clung to Rita even harder. My mother was not insulted or hurt. She admired that. When we left and were riding home she said to me bluntly; "i want you to associate with these people." my dad met Rita when he was picking me up at school a few days later and I was talking to her. Being a truck driver for 35 years he yells out; "hey, is that your girlfriend? You sure do know how to pick 'em!" I felt like crawling under a rock. I was now 13 and trying to act all mature and stuff and here dad was acting like he was going through puberty. Rita ate that up and loved it. She had her attitude and sense of humor.

Over the next coule of years our friendship grew and I had been trying to play cowboy, get into the culture. But I felt out of place. The guys were nice but I wasn't a cowboy. Rita one day saw me sitting at lunch outdoors, deep in thought and she sat down and asked what was wrong. I told her. She said I should stop trying to be something I wasn't, be myself "people like you. You have more friends than you know. Get out see the world. Use your talents, do what you want, then come back when you are ready. I will be here." well, that settled it. I had wanted to be in the navy or army and here this most admired and trusted friend had given me her advice. And she added; "you are smarter than all those silly dumbasses you hang out with all put together." and you know, Rita was right:) I figured I would do that. And once out of school and I could get serious I would chase her like a hound dog after a rabbit until I caught her. I wanted to be with her. Be a part of her life.

But, a couple of weeks later, our first day back from spring break, on my birthday, things happened. Rita greeted me that morning and joked if they knew it was my birthday maybe they would have given us another day off. And she wished me many more. I saw her leaving school that afternoon, to ride home with her best girlfriend. She waved. That evening on the news at 5 there was a report of a student dying in an accident. My heart fell through the floor. I got a call from a guy, asking if I had heard. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My mother and dad took it really hard as well.

The next day at school, people were falling apart still. The principal got on the PA and told us if we couldn't stand to be there, just go home. At the funeral they packed the place. Way past the fire codes. But I couldn't go in. I stood in the doorway and shook. I couldn't see her, in case it was open casket. I simply couldn't. My dad couldn't even go in the first place. I walked home and got half way, sat down and cried. Got up and walked home. My mother said there were easily 500 people there. The city was in mourning. I decided to devote myself to doing what Rita told me I should do. I started preparing myself for the military. But something unusual happened. I always had dreams of out of body travel, seeing places i'd never been to, in vivid detail, met people, and so such things were not odd to me.

I had a dream about 4 months after she died. Rita came to me, smiling and happy. Telling me to not worry. She was fine. That made me feel a lot better. I had never talked to anyone I actually knew. I saw the girl who was driving and wanted to tell her so badly but just didn't know how. I knew Rita survived and wished I had the nerve and words to do so. And when I graduated I enlisted and did it in Rita's name. I got a really good score and I was offered the chance to be in military intelligence, in the reserve while I go to college. And while I was doing that I got to go to israel, TDY, to take training there. One of the guys and I were talking about a tradition they have of planting trees in the name of someone.

So we went to a forest they were planting in the Galilee, at a place called Nahal Kziv, Goren forest. And I picked out a tree and a location and we planted it and the manager told me it would live as long as 3 or 4 hundred years. I got a certificate to bring back. I picked up a rock, fractured it into 3 pieces, left one piece with the tree, brought back the other two, one to keep and one to bury with Rita. I gave her mother the certificate. She was so happy and proud. Her little girl had her name on a tree in the Holy Land. Her folks were so broken hearted, I knew, but they never let on when I would visit, write or call. I stayed in touch with them and still have the letters she wrote me over the years. Well, the dreams got to be more detailed, sweet. And every couple of months she was there. People were telling me they felt Rita's presence. Thinking of her they would just feel she was there. They worship the ground she walked on to this day. Well, after I gave it to her mother I took the rock fragment to the cemetery and found there was no monument. I was shocked. I had not been able to force myself to go until then, 5 years later. Then it hit me. They simply couldn't. It was admitting Rita was dead. So I collected myself and went and got one made and placed for her. Went back and buried the rock fragment in the soft dirt. I did it anonymously. I didn't tell anyone. Not my folks or hers. It was between me, Rita and God. It was top secret for decades.

Over the years this sweet, gentle, funny girl would come in dreams and thoughts and she would offer advice, warnings, admonitions, and sometimes hug me and kiss me and tell me she loves me so much. I do believe Rita has shielded me from harm numerous times. I was driving to work and that soft sweet voice came into my head, telling me to slow down a bit going through an intersection. I did, and a large truck hit the front left of my car and tore it to shreds. If I hadn't listened he would have hit me broadside and directly on my side. I would have been killed. The cops said they never saw a car that demolished and the driver didn't even have a scratch or bump. You could see how the energy waves ran over the roof, along the doors, and the shaft was bent. It was like captain kirk had sulu raise the shields. The energy was diverted all around me.

I went to visit Rita during the hurricane Rita evacuation, I always laugh and joke with her when I visit, just like I did when she was alive. I told her; "sorry its been a while since I was here to visit. Took a storm with your name on it to get me down here." nobody was around and I told nobody. I had dreams of her talking to me about her family, said I should check on them. I did, after over a decade of not talking to them. They never had said anything about seeing the tombstone and I had the sickening thought they could never force themselves to go and didn't know it was there. I found her baby sister, the one from the grocery store, now almost 50, and learned mom and dad had both recently passed on. We reconnected and became close. I finally confessed I was the one who bought the tombstone. She said they knew. The babies went out and found it when they were teens. "how did you know who?" "because you were the only one who ever did anything for Rita." that broke my heart. I felt so sad for her. All the people who loved her and I was IT? Well, we talked and she came to visit and when we hugged there was this overwhelming feeling of happiness and love. Pure love. I told my sister later; "ITS RITA!" after that the dreams became even stronger and more emotional.

In one, Rita hugged me and kissed me and told me; "i love you so much!" "well, that's nice but by the time I get to where you are I will be old enough to be your grandfather." "where I am that doesn't matter. Time and age mean nothing." wow. And I came last year on my birthday/her death day to visit. I was talking to Rita and quipped; it sure would be nice if you could give me a sign you hear me. Within 2 minutes a small brown bird with the beak of a finch landed on the tombstone and chirped; "RITA!...RITA!...RITA!" I looked up and went; oh, you are GOOD! He cocked his head and looked at me as if to say; "get it?" oh, yeah. And the signs just kept coming. Her sister is a widow and can't begin to recover from losing him. She still was wearing the wedding ring. I said to Rita she needs a sign its time to take that ring off. Start to heal. In a couple of hours she was on FB having a fit. She had lost one of the diamonds in her wedding ring and said maybe it was time to take it off... Then I had a dream of an impending catastrophe in the houston area where I lived. And that voice saying; "i think its time to relocate." I got up at 3 and told people if something happened there they can say where they heard it first. I decided to do just that and moved out and back to where I lived, near where Rita is buried.

A week later hurricane harvey wiped out everything I left in storage to go back and pick up. The apartment building was to the roof in water. Rita got me to leave just in time. I was telling a friend about this and she suggested someone I had met once, a friend of hers. I should talk to her. I asked why? She is a detective. But not a normal one. She is a psychic detective. I thought, ok? Well, I will give her a try. See what she can do. She knew 0 about Rita. So I showed her the photo of the sisters and just told her Rita's name and she not only picked her out she started telling all kinds of details on the other sister. All of it spot on. I was floored. I told her of the dreams. She started talking to Rita. She used her vocabulary, style, told e;"i like her. She's funny!" wow. So I was still hesitant. Then she said Rita's grandpa came for her. Her granddad died 5 years before she was born. I tried 3 times to get her to change her story. She got put out with me. He was the only one who would have been available. She said when Rita realized she was dead went; "bummer. I thought I had longer this time." I asked just how many other times has she been here? Oh, many. She's VERY old. A couple of thousand years. And you have been married at least 4 times and been friends, relation, servant, bodyguard to her and you will be so again many times. And she added; it was instantaneous. She didn't even have time to be afraid and it didn't hurt a bit. It was the easiest death she has ever experienced. I knew this was true. I had read the medical examiner's report. Everything was so on the mark. I told her about the dreams. And suddenly she added; "oh, and Rita liked the joke about the storm." I thought WTH? Then it hit me. Omg. I had told nobody what I had said in the cemetery! Nobody would have known but Rita! She said those dreams are all true. Not my imagination. And she will be there for me when its my time. She likes seeing the world through my eyes. Rita told her she thinks its sweet what all I do for her, but sad. I asked how? "because you have passed up on many perfectly fine women and girls over the years, trying to find someone just like her." and I have. I then was stunned again. When I was at the cemetery I had told the director I wanted to get a plot there so I can be buried near her. She asked me "would you like to be buried next to miss rita? My jaw almost hit the floor. Ah, YEAH? Is that possible? Well, I made sure in my life insurance policy that her sister is the beneficiary and its to be kept for her newly born great niece who took one look at me and we fell in love, and I would just be cremated and the ashes buried next to Rita.

After a couple of nights Rita came and sat as always to my right and said to me; "i know what you are doing. I think its sweet. Its like you are marrying me." I had never thought of it like this. But I suppose Rita is correct. The medium told me well, she IS a sentimental and romantic teenage girl. And she knows you wanted to marry her someday. And with the dreams and messages and signs, often funny, like a beer can with strawber- RITA written on it I found as I was walking and talking to her out loud, I am sure this girl is indeed going to be there for me when its my time. She said her mom was in her final days with alzheimer's and Rita came to sit with her, hold her hand and stroke her hair and sing to her. Off key. Rita couldn't sing. And she knew it. Well, she said when mom passed she looked at her, her mind cleared and she said; "well, THERE you are!" and she took her off to the next world. Her little Rita. Her shining star. Her crown jewel. There is only one other person who comes to see me all the time. My dad. He is the eternal truck driver, always wanting to know if I am ready. He and Rita have never appeared in the same dream. When they do, I know it will be time to get ready. I am going on a long long trip. Rita showed up once in a dream, on the street. A pretty strawberry blonde in a dark blue business like suit came up to me, from the right, and told me clyde and tommie wanted to thank me for all I have said, written and done for them. I asked who she was. "don't you recognize me? I'm Rita. Not as you know. But you will." I looked into those golden yellow eyes with the dark green pupils and knew it was indeed her. I got to see what my Rita will look like the next time. She also has shown me what its like to be dead. The peaceful, happy and loving environment is indescribable. She wanted me to see what its like. I was so down over losing all my things in the hurricane flood waters and I saw her in a dream. Rita was sitting there and smiled at me and said "i'll love you forever, my friend." and that was all it took. I have not been sad since.

I know I have a beautiful, loving, ancient and pure soul that follows me and is always with me. Who has one hell of a big sense of humor and lots of power to manipulate the physical world. One last word, I developed PTSD and have been seeing a doctor. We were talking about Rita and he got into psychology due to his interest and personal experiences with such things. He jumped one day. He saw something flash by me. I said that was just Rita. Don't worry. He was not the first one to see that.:) and as the medium told me without me ever mentioning her position in the dreams, Rita always is at your right when she comes. Yeah. I know that is true. And I walk down the street, asking her to hold my hand and walk with me. I have this little mr. Spock vulcan mind meld ritual that I do every morning and night. "Rita likes the cute little ritual you do. She finds it comforting and reassuring." She knew. Rita told her. And even better, she likes when I do that. Thanks for reading. I wish you your own old soulmate and companion.