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Roxanne and Mike |
This Saturday The Mess welcomes the guest I have known the longest. Roxanne and I go back to our school days. We sang together in choir and shared a few classes as well as a love for writing. I've mentioned in other posts how my junior year we started the literary magazine Spindrift at my high school. Well, when Roxanne was a senior she became the editor of that creation. This guest post sees her back into writing after having had to set it aside since college and I am hoping it's the start of her picking it back up and sharing her stories with us.
Thank you, Roxanne, for joining us here at The Mess. I'm sure our readers are going to enjoy your story as I did. It's a prime example of what I keep saying. Life is short. Don't wait to go after your dreams and we owe it to ourselves to make the most of every day.
And now, here's Roxanne!
Mike’s
Hard Lemonade
I remember past generations always saying, “If life
hands you lemons, make lemonade.” Seemed
to me like solid advice from those that had experienced much more in life than
I dared to think I ever would. Funny how
those sayings come to fruition when you become an adult.
I met my fiancée, Mike in an online chat room (yes a
chat room), circa 2001. The ironic
tidbit to this was that I had known a few folks that had met “online” and I was
horrified. My thoughts in those cases
ranged from “Are you serious?” to “He might be a serial killer, what the hell
are you thinking?” Nonetheless, when
there is chemistry, there is usually a reaction. The reaction, in this case was me moving to
Lakeland to be with Mike. The first
thing that attracted me about him was his sense of family. The best example of this was when he invited
me into an online game room to play speed bingo with his mom. I then realized his sense of humor came from
his mom and like another old saying goes, “A good way to a woman’s heart is
through laughter.”
The usual life events passed with as much frequency as
the years: Thanksgiving, Christmas,
Valentine’s Day, and our “anniversary” of being a couple. His family embraced me with open arms as mine
did him. Things pretty much settled in
our corner of the world with one exception – we weren’t married. Unlike Mike, I had been down the “marital
aisle” once before and knew that I didn’t need a piece of paper to know who my
partner was. Much to our families’
chagrin, that sentiment wasn’t exactly what they had in mind for either of
us. The first lemon had been handed
out: “When are you getting
married?” The lemon was already being
squeezed into a pitcher as I jokingly told everyone the world would have to end
before he ever proposed and he told them it would have to be a cold day in hell
before he ever got married.
Most eventually gave up on any type of marital party
and we all went about our daily lives as we had for the past 11 years. In the last year, however, a prediction and a
life event would turn that one pitcher of lemonade into a full blown stand: the
Mayan calendar and Chronic Kidney Disease.
Mike was diagnosed with CKD in 2011 and while that would normally stop
most folks in their tracks, Mike seemed to go about this with his usual humor
and goofiness (which he is well known for in these parts). A couple of Mike’s hobbies are astrology and
history and there was much hoopla in 2012 about the end of world per the Mayan
calendar. We both got quite the kick out
of watching the “believers” stock up on supplies to survive the impending doom
and even the one guy who quit his job, sold all of his belongings and began
travelling the planet. Never in a
million lifetimes did I think this “doomsday”, December 21, 2012, would affect
me in the slightest.
That day was like any other Friday for me: work and
work. This Friday, however, Mike tells
me we have to go to a local park for a family reading of a poem he wrote for
his mother to remember lost loved ones during the holidays. As fate would have it, I’m running behind and
I can hear the exasperation in Mike’s voice with every phone call that we’re
going to be late. I commute to and from
work via I-4 and anyone who has ever driven on this parking lot of a highway
can tell you, on the Friday before Christmas you’re not going to get anywhere
in a reasonable amount of time. Luckily,
I make it home with time to spare and as we walk around the park taking
pictures, I’m oblivious to the surprise I’m about to get. It’s unusually cold this night (34 degrees)
and as I talk to Mike’s mom and sister I notice she is wearing a Detroit Tigers
shirt. I think nothing of this as
Lakeland is the training city for the Tigers and Mike’s mom likes
baseball. Anyone that knows me knows I
am from Michigan and this was his Mom’s way of honoring me. We walked around for a good 30 minutes and
out of nowhere Mike announced it’s time for the poem. What I didn’t know was that Mike had messaged
all of our chat friends, called his family and mine to let them know he was
going to propose and he had been waiting for my sister to arrive at the park so
she could witness the proposal. Captain
Oblivious (me) is amazed at the family poem Mike has so lovingly written for
his mother that it still doesn’t dawn on me as he is nearly finished with the
proposal that he is actually PROPOSING to me!
Needless to say I accepted Mike’s proposal and our wedding will be on
the day of our 12th anniversary as a couple.
As our lemonade stand is now complete, Mike and I will be
celebrating our future together in the truest way possible: with Mike’s Hard Lemonade.
* * * * *
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Thanks for visiting The Mess!
Other Suggested Posts ~ The Mess Welcomes Joanne Mazzotta
Thanks for visiting The Mess!
Don't you just love when you say "it'll be a cold day in Hell when..." and then it happens? I say it so much just to have it come to fruition that I think that the climate in Hell has to be fairly fickle. Regardless, congratulations on the proposal! Thanks Mike for giving her the platform to tell this awesome story.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading my story Peter! Yes, it's ironic how some of those "phrases of old" come to fruition.
DeleteIt is funny when that happens. I tend to have to eat my words too many times.
DeleteGreat post, Roxanne!
Roxanne, your story is absolutely beautiful. You are so creative. Thank you for being part of "our family".
ReplyDeleteWe love you.
Aunt Sandy
Thank you Aunt Sandy. Love you too.
DeleteLoved your story roxanne!!! still gives me shivers watching that video.....silly me....lol
ReplyDeleteyou know i wish you&mike a long and happy life together , i know you both has hardship but your love for eachother will get you through anything :)
Lars Andersson A.K.A mysteryman15133
Thank you Lars! Look forward to seeing you at the wedding.
Delete