August 23, 2008 – I was laying on a towel at Pyramids, enjoying the sun. Orion, my dog, ran up to a boy, and then ran back to me. Then back to him, and back to me. As he approached me, he bent over and pet her head. Wow. As soon as I saw him my heart fluttered. He put his board down near me, but not too close that he was encroaching on my space. Dude had game. He walked in front of me a bit, and as he stretched and turned, he smiled at me. The most beautiful smile. And his eyes were glittering! I didn’t even know how to respond, but I managed to smile back. My mind was like, “WHO IS THIS?” No way could he be a military kid… I asked, “Are you from here?” He replied, “I’m from Kaneohe.”
What followed was a conversation between two souls that already knew each other, though we’d never met. We spoke for an hour, maybe two. We talked about his dog, Buddy, who was too old to be Orion’s boyfriend. He told me about the work he did and his boss Pat, who would later marry us. We talked about my plans for the future, med school and Africa, in whatever order they came. We talked about surfing. I had always wanted to surf, he offered to teach me. At this point he moved in a little closer, we were good friends now. He looked younger than me, I didn’t know a 24 year old guy with a body like THAT. I asked, what year did you grad? ’07 was his reply. ’07???? I graduated college in 2005! I asked him, how old are you? He said 19. Woah. He asked how old I was I said, way older than you. And when I said 24, he was cool as can be, telling me his friend that he came with was in his 40s. Dude had serious game.
We planned to surf the next day. Call me when you wake up he said. And I did.
Everything and everyone tried to pull us apart, no exaggeration. But as clearly as God had created us individually, He too had created us as one. Two dots, one on my right hand, one on his left. And when we hold hands they connect.
