My Story

I had been out of the treatment center for about 3 months, and was learning to live life clean and sober; a bunch of my friends were travelling from Florida to the World Convention of NA in Atlanta. They knew I couldn't afford to go on my own, so they invited me to ride with them and we stuffed 5 of us into the hotel room. The first night was Fourth of July, and I was out on the green enjoying the fireworks and the outdoor concert, in my long hippie chick sundress and bare feet. I was standing next to a tall gentleman in khaki dress slacks and button down oxford shirt and we spoke a few words. I though "Square!" and he thought "Flake!" and since there were 20,000 people in attendance what were the chances that we'd see each other again?

The next afternoon I went outside to try and find a store to buy some cigarettes, and got completely turned around. I ended up walking into the parking lot where the motorcycles were, and leaning against a shiny silver-blue motorcycle was the Square from the night before in a pair of torn jeans and cowboy boots. I was in a tank top and shorts, and suddenly sparks were flying everywhere. "Is that your bike?" (DUH) "Yeah, wanna go for a ride?" (DUH) and we hit the 495 beltway at 70 miles an hour. We stopped at the store, bought some soda, and talked for about three hours. We missed the banquet dinner that we both had tickets to, instead we dined at the fine establishment known as Waffle House and talked for 4 hours more. Then we went to the green where the concert had been and talked till 3:00 in the morning. He showed up at the hotel and took me to breakfast the next morning, we exchanged phone numbers. Since he was from Nebraska, I thought that was the end of that.

But it was the beginning of a wonderful, beautiful eight years of being with THE ONE. He visited Jacksonville twice that first month, I went to Atlanta again and saw him before he went back to Nebraska. And we had a year of occasionally seeing each other, 300 dollar long distance bills, and letters and cards all of which I kept. I found out after he passed that he had kept all of my letters as well. We got married on the beach in our bare feet : )
and had a budget of $265.00 for our wedding and honeymoon both. He became a father to my three sons who adored him. And he loved me unconditionally, makeup or no, gaining weight or skinny, sunburned and windblown from being on the back of the motorcycle. We never had two pennies to rub together, but even at the end we could talk until 2 or 3 in the morning and finish each others sentences and laugh at the same stupid jokes. I wish I had the lifetime of marriage of 30 or 40 years, but in the eight short years that we did have, we had a lifetime of love.