Meeting Anniversary

 Sometimes (OK, often) it doesn't seem fair that so much of Bob's treatment coincided with other days that make this season just so much harder.  It was mostly in December that we made multiple trips to Shands to prepare for his treatment (at first they actually were going to do it over Christmas but realized that the labs wouldn't be able to handle it).  That coincided with things like my birthday, Christmas, and New Years.  Then there are other important dates - like today.  11 days after his bone marrow transplant, by which time we were supposed to start seeing some results - but weren't.

But January 24 has always been an important day.  In Fall of 1971 I came to the Florida State University - a huge change from the tiny high school (graduating class of 26 students) I had attended in the Azores.  We had lived overseas for 3+ years so I didn't really know many people in the United States, much less Florida.  A stranger in a strange land.  And a strange land indeed.  For one, it was during the Vietnam Era anti-military movement.  I was a military brat; I had been around military people all of my life.  Most of them had been pretty nice.  Just normal people who happened to wear a uniform to work.

To say I was lonely was a bit of an understatement.  I wanted to find my people.  So I signed up for ROTC.  I didn't know I was Leading A Movement.  1971 was the first year that any universities were allowing women into ROTC (there were 3 total in the US).  I didn't think it was that big of a deal.

But it wasn't enough.  I quickly found out that the majority of people in ROTC at the time were there because if you were in, then you were taken out of the draft lottery.  So it was just avoidance.  Not quite my tribe.

In the beginning of the spring term, I saw posters for a Pershing Rifle smoker (yep, back in those days, that's what an informal gathering was called).  It was to recruit cadets for the PR's.  People who actually wanted to be in the military, to get more experience.  So I went to a pledge meeting.

So did Bob.  And that's where it began.  We were pledge "brothers."  From the start we could work so well together.  And by mid-February we were a couple.  Looking back, that seems really fast.  At the time, it just seemed natural.

50 years ago today.  Wow.

I've handled it OK.  I think it's because I knew it was coming.  It's the things that hit me out of left field that knock me down.  Like a couple of nights ago I was watching Discovery of Witches, and as a background song they played "Time in a Bottle."  Such a beautiful love song, and one of "our" songs.  

If I could save time in a bottle

The first thing that I'd want to do

Is to save every day till eternity passes

and then, I would spend them with you

So I hit the pause button until I stopped crying.  He had given me all of his days.

But I stopped crying when I went to bed, because suddenly in my mind's ear I could hear his voice singing a slightly different version:

If I had the wings of an angel

And the ass of a great buffalo

I would fly to the highest of mountains and then

I would shit on the people below

He could always make me laugh.  Still can, 50 years later.