She said “Glacier Freeze Gatorade”, which was his favorite.
He decides to spend the summer before his senior year working in Texas instead of New Jersey. She doesn’t get offered a position in North Carolina, so she disappointingly accepts one in Texas.
She convinces him to join her and others on a walk during a rainy evening. They spend more time together. He talks, she listens. She talks, he listens.
The summer quickly comes to an end. They go back home. He was from New York. She was from Florida. She went to school in California. They have no plans to see each other again.
They stay in touch. They become best friends. Over a Skype conversation in the fall, they decide there is more to their friendship—they decide to get married.
He graduates. She’s still in school. He tells his mother, she is not receptive. There are too many differences. They are too young. It is not possible.
He moves to Colorado for a new job. She starts her senior year. Months pass and he brings up the topic with his mother again, she is still not receptive. Her family is supportive.
They start planning a summer wedding in New York across three different time zones. Wedding details begin to finalize, but much else is left uncertain. Both are job searching.
She’s the first to get a job offer—on the Tuesday before the wedding. They meet each other’s parents and families for the first time the next day. The wedding is on Friday.
It rains on their wedding day.
On Monday, they drive 18 hours from Tampa to Baltimore to begin their new life together. She was 21. He was 22. She starts a new job the next day. He is unemployed.
Two weeks later, he is hospitalized. He is still unemployed, uninsured. But they are married. They have each other. They have fought through more challenging times.
Renda Writer’s handwritten mural in Miami best summarizes the last few years of my life: "Love is a risk. Do it anyway.”
Genevieve: I love you. Thank you for being the best part of my life.
I would love to hear from you: what’s the biggest risk that you have taken in your life?
Azhar Ali
[email protected]
DC Metro Area