by Maria Geraci

First off, I’m glad to say that my daughter doesn’t read my blogs, so I feel pretty free to say whatever I please here without fear of the dreaded “Mom, you didn’t write that, did you?” repercussion. That said, I can continue. I’m currently down in Orlando, getting my youngest daughter settled into her freshman year at the University of Central Florida (the nation’s 2nd largest university with a student population of over 56,000!)

We’ve now made 3 trips to Target (latest figures have us at the 1,000 dollar mark), 2 trips to Bed, Bath and Beyond, a trip to Publix (to stock her up on her organic cereal) as well as a trip to the outlet mall to take advantage of tax free weekend to buy clothes. Both me and my credit cards are exhausted. Let me just tell you, boys are much cheaper and easier, so thank God I have one of those as well.

On day 2 of our moving in the dorm expedition, we took a break to eat lunch at Panera. It was an odd time of the day  (2pm) so the restaurant wasn’t crowded, although it was pleasantly full. We got our food and sat at our table, when I noticed a young man (close to my daughter’s age) check her out (we moms are eagle eye experts at this). He had a computer and some writing supplies in front of him, so I assumed he was probably a student. After a while I noticed he went back to his computer and writing so I didn’t pay him anymore attention. My daughter and I finished lunch, and left the restaurant.

On our way outside to the car, this young man followed us outside and called out to my daughter,
“Miss!” My first thought was that we’d left something behind.

“I’m not a stalker or anything,” he said (this is when I started getting a little nervous.)

“Um, okay, ” my daughter said.

He then handed her a folded piece of paper with the words “to the girl with the black hair”. “I wrote this for you. You’ll never know my name, but I wanted to give this to you.”

My daughter looked a little stunned, but she took the paper from him. We got inside the car and looked at one another. “I hope it’s not porn,” I thought.  My daughter opened the letter and read it to me as we drove back to her dorm. Shame on me. It was not porn. It was one of the loveliest love poems I’ve ever heard.

Now, maybe this guy sits at Panera all day long and gives different girls a similar version of this poem. Or maybe not. It was so specific to my daughter and to the events that were happening around us while we ate, that I have to think that he did indeed write it just for her (or else he’s just really good at putting in spontaneous details). Regardless, my daughter was completely charmed (and so was I).

“Keep that,” I told her. “You might never get anything like that again.”

She smiled and tugged it away in her handbag. “I’m going to pin this to my bulletin board and when I’m having a really bad day, I’m going to read it.”

Who said romance was dead?