Post-traumatic stress disorder manifests itself differently for everyone who has experienced some kind of trauma, and for one hero WWII veteran, not even the love of his life could make him forget the horrific things he witnessed and experienced at just 18 years old.
Roy Vickerman was sent to fight in the D-Day Landings in Normandy just a week after proposing to his soulmate, the then 18-year-old Nora Jackson. The two had met in 1940 when they were just 13 years old while attending school in Bucknall, United Kingdom. “When the teacher told the class there’s a new boy from London, all the faces turned towards me but the only one I saw was Nora,” Roy said. “I thought to myself, she’s the girl for me.”
Roy and Nora soon fell in love, and Roy proposed before being shipped off to fight in one of the deadliest and most destructive wars in history. “We had gotten engaged just before I went abroad, but when I came back, I think I developed post-traumatic stress disorder and I just wanted to be alone,” Roy said. “So I called off the engagement.”
They both moved on with their lives, and got married and had children with their new spouses. While they each thought of each other from time to time, they never thought they’d see each other again. “To be honest, I had always thought about Nora the whole time,” Roy said. “I was always wondering how Nora was.”
70 years later, Roy managed to track Nora down, but wasn’t sure if she was married or not. “I didn’t want to intrude if Nora had a husband, but one day, I just thought, ‘No, I’ll just go get some flowers and tell them I’d like to ask how Nora is and that I’d like to apologize to her for what happened,'” Vickerman said.
But when Roy knocked on the door, Nora recognized him immediately and wouldn’t let him leave. “She told me, ‘Oh Roy, I thought I’d never see you again,’ and then she gave me a kiss and said, ‘Hold me,” he said.
Roy visited her every day after that, and this past March, nearly 72 years after first proposing in 1944, he proposed to her a second time during his 90th birthday party with the same exact ring he bought her years ago. “She knew I was going to propose because it was the original ring but the guests didn’t know,” Roy explained. “I didn’t go down on one knee because I wouldn’t get up again, but we had the first dance.”
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[Featured image credit: SWNS]
WWII Veteran Proposes To His Soulmate 72 Years After Calling Off Their Engagement is an article from: LifeDaily