What's Real

I first saw David when I walked into my parents’ favorite neighborhood restaurant, Teachers. I had been in New York two days, visiting from California to recover from a broken heart. As my mother and I made our way to our table, I spotted him behind the bar: dark hair, broad shoulders, a serious face and in command. As it turned out, I started waitressing there two days after that.

I was first drawn to David by his kind eyes and gentle nature. Then it was his humor -- satiric, quick, dry, witty; sometimes brilliant.

We were fortunate to have an intense and highly romantic courtship with a New York City backdrop, because soon enough life hit us like a ton of bricks.

David and I have been together through financial hardship, the death of a dear friend and the death of his mother. He was beside me the day Annie was born, and the day my father suddenly died. He met me at home on September 11, 2001, when I was evacuated from my office just blocks from the World Trade Center. A year later we sat silently together in a cab after I told him that his father was dead.

I have caused David pain, but he is bigger than his ego and more powerful than his feelings. He doesn't take the offense, nor does he take the defense. He responds with a deep understanding that whatever is “happening” has meaning and a purpose, and it transcends anything we can possibly perceive in the moment.

After our first date, David and I were together every day. I cooked for him in my mother’s kitchen and he watched basketball with my dad. And when I asked him what his intentions were, he said that he intended to marry me.

We met at the end of winter, started a romance in early spring, were engaged by summer and married the following winter. Eleven months from hello to hell, yes.

David knows me better than I know myself. In any situation he can anticipate what I’m going to say or feel, or how I’m going to react. But even so, he still seems surprised and delighted by me as if I were someone new.

I have never known a person like David. He is remarkable and he amazes me. He has loved me for 17 years, not an easy job, but one he gladly took. He is the only man I’ve been with who never wanted me to be anything other than what I was.

I never want to lose sight of how fortunate I am to have him in my life.

Happy weekend, blog resumes Monday.