Puppy Love

I have not heard those words used in a long time. I guess today’s modern youth don’t experience puppy love.

Or at least they don’t call it that any more.

So, for anyone who doesn’t know what the term ‘puppy love’ means, it describes a kind of transitory affection felt by a child or adolescent.

I had a few instances of puppy love during my adolescent years but I haven’t really thought much about that term, or that feeling, in a long time.

Until this past week.

That’s when I opened Facebook and read about the unexpected death of Belynda Singletary Reneau.

I am sure that a lot of people remember Belynda as an adult. She was well-loved by many in our community. But I only really remember her as a little girl.

And one of the first times I ever had puppy love.

My father led the singing at a lot of different churches while I was growing up. And one of those churches was Barnett’s Creek Baptist.

That’s where I first met Belynda.

I was 12. She was 11.

I’m sure that as young boy, I was first attracted to her because she was so beautiful. And she was, with huge corn flower blue eyes.

I felt like I could stare into those eyes for hours. And I did.

We giggled and sat beside each other in Sunday School and, sometimes when people weren’t watching, we would hold hands out behind the church.

Writing that now seems so old-fashioned. By the time kids are twelve these days, they’re already texting naked photos to each other on iPhones that cost a thousand dollars.

We didn’t have cellphones back then and even if we did, I’m pretty sure that if Belynda’s daddy had caught me sending a naked picture of myself to his daughter, I would be typing this with a pencil held in my mouth.

You learn to do that when your arms have been ripped off.

There was no dating or meeting each other at the skating rink or hanging out at the mall together. We were both country kids. If I wanted to see Belynda, I had to go to church.

So, I never missed a service.

Yeah, I loved Jesus but I was smitten with Belynda.

However, there was one very rare occasions when we saw each other away from the church.

When I read about her untimely passing this week, I thought about that night.

My family went over to Belynda’s house one Sunday night after church. Our parents were playing cards or something and expected us kids to entertain ourselves.

At some point during the night, Belynda and I wound up sitting on the floor of her bedroom.

The door was open, of course. But even if it wasn’t, there was no risk of anything happening in that room.

Belynda’s dad was a huge mountain of a man and very stern. I don’t remember ever seeing him smile. And I was absolutely certain that if he found out that I touched his daughter inappropriately, he would crush my head like a coconut.

And my parents would be behind him, encouraging him to make sure my death was slow and painful.

Belynda’s room had thick shag carpeting and we kicked off our shoes and sat down beside the bed. We didn’t dare sit together on the bed. Being on a bed together, even fully clothed and ten feet apart was practically fornication and would be another one of those things that, if I were caught, would cause me to have my arms ripped off.

Just being alone in the room and sitting that close to Belynda on the floor was electrifying.

That’s one of the characteristics of puppy love. That flutter that you feel.

And boy, did I feel it that night.

After a few minutes, Belynda said she wanted to show me something and reached up into the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out a worn cassette tape.

 

She popped it into the boom box sitting beside her bed and pressed ‘play.’

The end of a song faded away and then I heard my voice.

When I was twelve, my Dad gave me a job working as a DJ on Saturday afternoons at his radio station. I had been given strict instructions to just play records and commercials. No talking.

That lasted maybe two weeks. And then I started taking requests. And one of the people who called me to request songs every Saturday was Belynda.

For her, I didn’t just play the songs. I did elaborate dedications. They were silly and quite amateurish- exactly what you would expect from a pre-teen boy.

And Belynda recorded them. All of them. On this ragged cassette tape.

We sat there with our toes touching on that shag carpet and listened to that tape of me dedicating song after song to her. And I realized that instead of doing other ‘girl stuff’ on her Saturday afternoons, Belynda sat here with her fingers poised over the play and record buttons of her boom box, anxiously waiting to record another dedication.

It took a lot of dedication and must have meant she truly liked me, which to this moment I had doubted.

So, I reached out and grasped her hand. She smiled and we just sat and listened to that tape, in silence, while I gazed into those incredible blue eyes.

This was puppy love in its truest form.

The cassette ended and Belynda reached up and ejected it.

I asked her why the tape looked so ragged and she said it was because she went to sleep every night listening to it.

“Why?” I asked.

“So I can go to sleep listening to your voice.”

I didn’t know what to say. No girl had ever liked me this much before. But I did know that at that moment I wanted to do more than just hold her hand.

So, I leaned forward on that shag carpet and pulled her closer to

me. I was going to kiss her.

And I would have if my mother hadn’t appeared in the doorway at that precise moment to tell me it was time to go home.

I saw Belynda’s obituary online this week and it listed all of the things she had accomplished as an adult. There was a photo of her, also as an adult.

I read all the comments from people saying what a sweet and nice person she was. Most people will remember her like that.

A co-worker. A mother. A grandmother.

Not me.

To me, she will always be that beautiful little girl sitting barefoot on her shag rug staring at me with those incredible blue eyes, holding my hand.

That’s the Belynda I will remember. That little girl.