[Laura asked one thing of me on a surreal day when we talked about the possibility of my remarrying after she was gone. "Please make sure she is kind." And so she is...]
I’m having a little trouble deciding where to begin. I can start at “our” beginning…when Jenn and I met…but THAT beginning is a single point in time that is more significant to us than it is to Life as a whole.
I’m coming to understand that like all things in our lives our meeting was plotted out by an invisible something that knew we’d be together all along.
Call it the Hand of God…the Universe…Fate…Destiny. It doesn’t much matter how or what we call it…there is something out there that is bigger than you and I and I think it has a plan.
I also know why I’m having trouble picking a starting point to our story. It’s because those things…God…the Universe…Fate…are infinite. No beginning. No end. In my estimation WE define the starting and ending points…but mostly Life just “is.” I also know this:
There is a love story unfolding with a beginning of our choosing…but no starting point at all…because we’ve always been there, Jenn and I.
It may be hard to comprehend that in our linear world, but it’s a lesson I gradually learned when Laura got sick: Ain’t no time but NOW. (Sorry…I have an 80 year blue’s man alter ego that chimes in every now and again. Not really…but it sounds cooler to say, “ain’t.”)
I’d like to share our story because I believe there are lessons inside that will help make life a little more tolerable for all of us…and honestly…this turn of events is more than I could have asked for. I am starting to come back to where I was…the “old me”…only as a different person.
Our story is one of THOSE stories…complete with an unexpected meeting…awe struck main characters…dragons to be slayed…and an unquestioning commitment to see it through until the credits roll.
So let me pick a point as the beginning for now because the entire story is much too incredible to capture in a single entry. I hope you’ll stick through until the end because some of the things that happened BEFORE we met will blow you away.
In the Beginning…
It all started in a crowded room hundreds of miles from our home towns. Four simple words were uttered at the right time..in the right place…by the right person…to the right people. And none of it happened by accident. It goes something like this:
“Meet Andy…he’s awesome.”* With that my friend Janna walked away and left me standing a bit dumbfounded…looking into the eyes of Jenn…the woman I am going to marry.
Next: “You live where?”
*OK…she said that and I didn’t pay her either. That idea is completely open to debate…
