A curious case of how I met my husband
The dead of winter is upon many of us in the Northern hemisphere, and for me this is a quiet time. The holiday rush is over, and I have more time outside of work. It’s too early to make summer plans, and roller coaster season is at least three months away. My upcoming bungee jump is also months away, and it will be some time before the remains of the Key Bridge is demolished and ground is broken for its replacement. And the letter I sent to the owner of that site dedicated to the abomination of Tampa Bay has yet to be answered. Which, considering the time of year and my very long letter, I would not expect a quick reply. Or, perhaps no answer will be forthcoming, as per my dream with those scrolls crumbling away before I could read them.
So, in the mean time, I have decided to finally tell the very curious story of how my husband and I met. Everyone who has ever had romantic relationship (or even a lasting friendship) has a such a story. Some are unusual, some surprising while some are more mundane. But the strangest parts of my account are the events that happened before we ever made contact. This story begins many, many years ago with another “how we met” recollection. That person was my very best friend. I’ll refer to her as Keri here. Keri and I met in 6th grade in a somewhat unusual way. Instead of sitting next to each other in class or at lunch, we met when she had to stay indoors in the home room during outdoor phys-ed because she suffered from severe allergies. I was new at this school and I took a bathroom break right at the end of the previous class, which had been in the home room. When I came back, my class had vanished, and I had no idea where they had gone. So, I sat down with Keri and we began to get to know each other. I was lost and she had been left behind, and neither of us were the “popular” kids so we bonded over that. To cover a long period of time, Keri and I became best of friends. We were never really able to do a whole lot together (outside of going to movies, malls and other such places) because Keri suffered from several severe congenital illnesses. Two diseases so rare that I can barely pronounce, much less spell their names. Both caused life threatening problems and at the very least in the later years confined Keri to oxygen and a wheelchair. Doctors told her mother that she’d never make it past her teens, But she had a strong will to live and she made it thru so many adversities, including over 40 major surgeries, including on her spine, neck and brain. And surgeries to break and reset her twisted leg bones, and more surgery to repair bones she would break when she slipped and fell. She was fragile but at the same time she was extremely tough. She was the kind of person who would do anything for you and give you what little she had to give. But one day, when we were both in our late 30’s, all of those health problems she had began to finally take their toll. Her strength seemed to be fading, and what was once surmountable began to seriously drag her down. Little did I know that when we exchanged gifts during the Christmas season of 2009, that would be her last Christmas. Her birthday was in the following January, and she had just turned 40. My birthday would come later in the spring, in April, when I would reach the same age. But sadly she developed a bad case of pneumonia in March and passed away a few days later.
It took me some time to try and get over that devastating loss, which of course I never entirely will. I kept in contact with her mother for a few more years, until she too passed away. But it was then, in the winter of 2014, that the daily mediocrity of my life began to be turned on its head. I was living with my mom at the time, having moved back from California right before my father died. My days were filled with working in my basement shop, and working part time outside the house. Plus taking care of mom’s house and yard. At that time I wondered what life had in store for me, as I felt like I was just drifting without any direction or goal. There I was, 44 years old, still single and again living with mother. My future seemed rather dim, to say the least. Keri had been gone for almost four years as the new year began.
But something within me began to stir. It was a feeling that is hard to describe, something perhaps akin to what a bird might experience when the cues in nature say that it’s time to head south for the winter. Or like the whiff of distant rain in a scorched, arid landscape that hasn’t seen any precipitation in ages. Change was coming into my life and it hit me like a towering wave crashing onto a beach. I began to feel restless, as though I was to begin a journey, yet I had no idea where I was going and there was no “flock” to follow as might a migrating bird. A lot of unusual circumstances developed over the early months of 2014, one of which was the reappearance of the “Bogey Man” whom I had tangled with much earlier in my life. I had no idea why this fearsome figure of my past suddenly appeared in a public place, along with his wife. I had not come face to face with them one time since when I was in high school, despite the fact that they lived right behind my mom’s house and they presumably went about in the same stores and neighborhoods as did I. But suddenly when I went to cast my vote at a local polling place, there they were, as though they were brought out into the open just so I would see them. And this was only the beginning…