Monday, April 9, 2007

The Story of Us


How did we come to be? Honestly I think it was meant to be. At times he was at Fort Leonard Wood (4 different times) and I was in Springfield. When he was in New York, so was I. When he was in Richmond, I was in Fredericksburg. I had dated on and off for years never finding anyone right. I had decided that it just wasn't God's will for my life to marry. So, I bought a house and chose to concentrate on my career and living a full life as a single instead of waiting for my life to begin with a man. I took nice vacations, spent time with friends, made new friends and found a church where single women had a place and weren't perceived as strange or sad. Then, one day I received an email from a man who said he had read my profile and seen my picture. In the email he told me about himself. His story was compelling, and since he had revealed that he was in the Army, he could be researched somewhat. I chose to respond, rather cautiously, to his email. We emailed for a few weeks and then spoke on the phone a few times. We had so much in common. From our backgrounds to our goals and aspirations it was amazing. Eventually we decided to meet. We went to a movie and then spent hours talking. Just getting to know each other. We are both MASH fans. Not just that we like the show but we both knew a lot of trivia and details the average fan doesn't know. We both drove the same kind of car. We came from the same kind of homes and had similar experiences in our young adult lives that had lead both of us to be extremely frugal in our current lives. Well, I was living in Springfield, and he lived at Ft. Leonard Wood about 90 min northeast. So we mostly only saw each other on the weekends. We just fit. We were both at the point in our lives where we knew what we wanted and what we didn't want. The pieces were just falling into place. We talked about getting married and what married life in the Army would be like. Two days before Christmas I was admitted to the hospital in severe pain. They had to give me a lot of pain medicine to get on top of the pain. Alan was with me and left about midnight. After he left I fell asleep and stopped breathing. When they found me my O2 sat was 35% and I wasn't breathing. I almost died. Alan was stunned to see me the next day in a different room on oxygen. On Christmas Eve, we had a record snow storm. I was still in the hospital and watching the TV as 2 feet of snow came down in about 4 hours. Cars were off the road everywhere. Alan called to say that he was on his way. He was to spend Christmas with my family. I worried about him making it. 4 hours later he came in, in uniform. He climbed into my hospital bed with me and asked me to marry him. I said yes, and he pulled out a box with my engagement ring. Later he asked again to make sure it wasn't the drugs talking. lol. The rest you know.

The Mickey and Minnie Mouse cake topper is for 2 reasons. All the cake toppers with 2 people were either 2 black people or 2 while people. Not one of each. Mickey is my favorite cartoon character. I have an extensive collection of Mickey things. Also, we had originally planned to go to Disney World for our honeymoon. Not that that ended up happening, but our honeymoon is a story for another day.

Disclaimer, I refer to my husband as black and not African American for 2 reasons. 1. We're not interested in being politically correct. 2. My husband is not African. He is part French, part Haitian and part Polynesian. Someday I may do a post about my opinions about political correctness.

5 comments:

Janie said...

I clicked on your blog and thought "SHE DID IT!!" As in, she decided to tell "the story". I am just a hopeless romantic, I guess, when it comes to real life romance...forget the sappy fiction....I want the real thing! You have a beautiful story and it is so neat that you already had so much in common, even driving the same car. Too weird. I am sorry you were so seriously ill...that sounds frightening. So that is the story of Mickey and Minnie! That is very sweet. I so enjoyed your post today.

Morgan said...

Neato sweet! I loved it. My Mom (Janie) had me read this beautiful story and I am so glad I did. I am sure I will come and visit your blog again. I love hearing about your life overseas. Your blog is very interesting.

JunkMale said...

Yay for interracial relationships! I'm very happy with my white-as-snow wife. I usually refer to her as white and not American, since technically I'm American too. I always try to be correct in my terminology, instead of politically correct.

One thing that sort of confuses me is the term "Native American." Apparently that's a PC term? But isn't that technically more accurate/correct than saying "Indian?" I'm always hesitant to call Native Americans "Indian" because they're not from India.

In other news, I really don't remember if we even had a cake topper made in the likeness of people. That's a man for you, I guess.

Rebecca said...

Thank you for commenting Junk Male!
I agree with Native American as a PC term. I don't know about the best way to refer to members of what we used to call Indian nations. I don't think it should be Native American as I consider myself to be a native american. The people I met while living in Oklahoma, if they cared, usually refered to themselves as Apache, or whatever the name of their tribe was.
For more on interracial couple situations see my honeymoon story.

Morgan, thanks for stopping by and for your kind comments. You are welcome here any time.

Janie you are so sweet. Thank you.

JunkMale said...

I guess that technically makes me a native American, since I was born here.

I probably have a more recent (albeit still ancient) common ancestor with the Indians (since I am Korean/Asian) than with my wife. To find a common ancestor between my wife and me, you would most certainly have to go back to Noah's family on the ark.