Memories

15 years ago today, my life changed.

Standing out in a parking lot in Missoula, Montana, gathered with high school sophomores from around the state for a weekend youth leadership seminar, I heard a car door slam. All of us were wearing color-coded shirts to indicate what group we were in, so when I spun around to identify the offending noise, my eyes landed first on a shirt that matched mine. Ash gray was our color -- awful. I glanced at the faded denim shorts, black high-tops, black sunglasses, and quickly made my assessment. Jock. Cocky. Good gravy, he is actually SWAGGERING in, even though he is late. I had just recently turned 16, and firmly opposed tardiness.

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the speaker plodding through the rules of the weekend. I didn't worry much about that guy -- boys rarely showed any interest in me. I was the friend, never the girlfriend. Besides, our group of students had plenty of adorable blondes to keep him busy. I was on a mission. Growing up, I had demonstrated early leadership characteristics, but painful junior high years had pushed me into my shell. I viewed this weekend as a turning point. Every school sent just one sophomore to this program, the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership seminar. I didn't know anyone else there, so I had the chance to be the real me, to bring that person out again, without fearing what my peers would think. It was a big weekend for me.

As I listened to the speaker, I suddenly became aware of someone standing behind me and a voice, whispering in my ear "Did I miss much?" I turned my head right into the most devastatingly handsome smile I had ever seen. Picturing it now, my heart still stops, just like it did then. Whoever this tardy boy was, he is H-O-T. As I stared dumbly at him, feeling the blush crawling up my neck and face, I remember thinking, why is he talking to me? Of all the girls in this group, why me?

Over the weekend, Kurt and I became immediate friends. Saying good-bye after that first weekend was hard -- we lived 200 miles apart, and had no reason to cross paths again. By the time I got home that night, Kurt had already called me, just to make sure I got home ok. It would be months, and hundreds of dollars in phone bills, before we would admit that there was more between us than friendship -- a brief kiss in a junior high parking lot during the Big Sky State Games, a phone call to exchange nervous "I love yous" before a football game. There were fights and break-ups, other relationships and long distances. But through it all, I never doubted that we were meant to be.

By the time I was 18, I had come to the melodramatic conclusion that if Kurt and I didn't marry, I would never be married. We broke up a few months later. But with the passage of time, a little more wisdom and slightly less drama, I know that statement to be true. If not Kurt, then no one. He is my best friend, my first kiss, my soulmate, my much better half. I spend every Friday watching chemo drip into him, but I know that God could not have worked so hard to bring us together, just to have us say good-bye now. I remember, back in high school, being asked how I could be so sure about Kurt. I explained that when I tried to picture my future without him, the images get fuzzy. In my minds eye, I can imagine what my future will be like -- kids, jobs, a home -- but if I try to picture those things without Kurt standing next to me, the images just blur. I quite literally cannot imagine a life without him. Whatever the purpose is for our lives, we haven't accomplished it yet. This war we are waging now is just preparing us for the next step in our lives.

So that is the story of how we met -- a story I love to tell. A week from now, we will celebrate 8 years as husband and wife. Fifteen years later, I still ask myself -- why me? Of all the women in the world, why did he pick me? I'm a lucky girl.