Love, Blindfolded, Enduring

"Yeah, he did let me down by going and doing something like that, because I thought he was getting out, he was changing his life. You know, he really wanted to start fresh." Jennifer Prince

We humans have imaginations and we have dreams, aspirations and hopes. Sometimes they are realized, more often they may not be. And then we live with the realization that our dreams will not eventuate, that those aspirations that gave us so much hope turned out to be illusory. And we tend to fantasize, to make life more palatable. From there we graduate to accepting the less-than-perfect antidote to loneliness and despair.

And then we tend to live with our illusions. Those illusions become unshakable. For with them lies our salvation, if we have convinced ourselves that we have, at last, found the solution to our dire need to make life worth living. For many women, independent and strong-willed as they may be, life without a partner is simply a half-life. Where many women find it perfectly acceptable, even preferable, to live without a man, many will not or can not or wish not to.

And this is when, as time progresses and nothing substantial occurs to firm up that need, the guard against committing to someone who represents the less-than-desirable object is lowered even as expectations rise again. Granted, some women are imbued with a fascination for 'bad' men, men who have committed societal crimes, including commissions of violence. These women somehow migrate to these types of men, visiting them in prison, marrying them there.

Other women simply pine for the presence of a man in their life; a primary, stabilizing, comforting feature. And such, obviously, was the case with Jennifer Prince who is a still-young and attractive woman, with two teen-age daughters. She is only 38, has worked at the same job for twenty years. A single mother who preferred that her life include a stable partnership with a man who could fulfill her dreams of companionship.

When she met Corey Blaskie it was shortly after his release from prison. He was a petty crook. And he was involved with drugs. She knew his criminal past, but she saw beyond that, to the man he represented to her, a potential mate. And although he never did find a job while they lived together in a house she bought, she valued him for his kindness to her, for the manner in which he demonstrated how much he cared about her.

"He'd surprise me by getting one rose, and when I'd come out of work it would be on my windshield underneath the windshield wiper. I'd come home and he'd say, 'Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate you being in my life?'", she recounted. When she got home from work, he would have cooked dinner and set the table.

"It was his caring. There were just ways about him. You just felt wanted. You looked forward to coming home all the time. We very rarely fought about anything."

They did, though, have disagreements about his going out bicycle riding late at night, when she would far rather have preferred that he remain in bed, with her, through the night. And one night he just didn't come back home to her. He had gone out bicycle riding, her restless partner. He had entered the private property of people whose home had been broken into numerous times previously, and they had installed an alarm system.

Which had alerted them to the presence of someone in their garage. An altercation ensued between the homeowner and Jennifer Prince's Corey Blaskie. Her Corey had grimly attempted to strangle Nathan Woods, and when Mr. Woods' 18-year-old son Jake attempted to free his father from Corey Blaskie's grip, he could not. Until he stabbed Corey Blaskie. After which both Nathan and Jake attempted to resuscitate Corey Blaskie.

They could not.

And now, Jennifer Prince is saving to be able to afford a headstone for the man whose memory she cherishes.