The Story of Us

So I'm sitting at work perusing my twitter feed and the customer lounge in the next room has some show on the TV. I'm not sure what it is, but it's like Entertainment Tonight or TMZ or something that deals only with the lives of celebrities. So garbage, basically. Anyhow, the big news of the day is that actress Tara Reid (who was sooo hot in Van Wilder) reportedly got engaged and married all in the same day. And apparently she wasn't even drunk in Vegas when this happened.

Now, I don't give a rat's ass what Tara Reid has chosen to do with her life, so this post has nothing to do with her (but it does make me wan to watch Van Wilder again - tremendous film). Since the intent, or at least a large part of the intent, of this blog is to give my kids a place to get to know me and my inner-most thoughts, I think the Reid marriage gives me a good enough excuse to tell the story of my wife and I.

This is a long and complicated story, but whose marriage isn't? Ours is a story unlike anyone's I ever heard though. Stay with me, I think you'll enjoy...

I first met Valerie several months after my then-fiance (Jenn) and I moved back to Lima from Bowling Green. Jenn had taken a job at a laboratory doing pharmaceutical research. It was there that she met Valerie and the two became good friends. On occasion, Jenn and I would visit the local bars and one such evening we were joined by Valerie and her husband. I remember seeing her for the first time; she wasn't especially tall, but carried herself in a way that made her look taller than her 5'8" frame. She walked with a confidence about her. She had the most amazing eyes I've ever seen, a pure blue that can't be re-created by crayola. I liked her immediately. She was amazingly alluring, she was sexy. (Sorry kids, but there is no other way to put it)

Fast forward about a year. Valerie's marriage had long since ended and she had been dating a few people. Jenn and I would talk and I remember telling her how Valerie was better than this new guy or that one. I didn't see her often and no, there was never anything going on between us, but Valerie was someone I did like. I can't say the same for some of Jenn's other friends.

It was late January of 2008 when Jenn left the house on a Friday afternoon. She was driving back home to her parent's house for the weekend, or at least that's what she had told me. This wasn't all that unusual. I was watching Top Gun on AMC that night when my phone rang. It was my cousin, who asked if Jenn was home. I told him she wasn't, that she had gone back to Canton for the weekend. "No she didn't, dude" he said "she's at the movies with some guy and a 12-year-old kid." My heart immediately went to my throat.

I called Jenn, no answer. I texted her, she responded that she couldn't talk. I called again, finally she answered. I told her what my cousin had said, sure (or at least desperately hoping) that he was mistaken; that it wasn't Jenn he had seen. She laughed a bit, but said she had to go. She was at the movies, she told me, but in Canton, with her friend Terri. I asked what she was seeing (I have no idea why I asked this, but I did). Her response: National Treasure 2. I told her to have fun and we hung up. But something didn't sit right.

I racked my brain. Why would she go see National Treasure Two? A sequel to a movie that (to my knowledge) she had never seen? It didn't make sense. A Disney film? A sequel? Even for her, that wouldn't be one you would make a trip to a theater to see, especially if you'd never seen the first one. You would only do this if you were with a child that had seen the first one. This would be an excellent film to take a kid to see. Now I was fairly sure that my cousin had been right, but what to do?

I wound up doing the only thing I could think of in my panic. Five minutes before, my life was good, now with one phone call from my cousin, my whole world was shattered. I called Valerie. I had never even spoken with her on the phone before. I was a mess as I explained what was happening. She couldn't tell me anything, of course, even if she knew. She was Jenn's friend, not mine. I knew that, but I didn't know what else to do. She stayed on the phone with me for a long time, eventually she broke and told me I should go to the theater.

I caught my fiance coming out of the movies with another man and his child. I confronted her in the parking lot. She returned home that night, but things were very much over at that point. I wasn't sure I wanted to try to fix things, but she was sure she really liked this guy, a divorced 37-year-old Marine.

Two days later, I spent an evening with Valerie (with Jenn's blessing). From that day forward, Valerie and I spent almost every day together. It wasn't long before Valentine's Day rolled around. Jenn even went with Valerie to pick out a gift for me. By the end of February, we were very much in love. As it turns out, we were also very much pregnant. To me, there was no choice to be made here. I was in love with this woman like I've never imagined love could be. I had been with Jenn for seven years and to be honest, the last five of those were more for comfort than anything else. I would learn later that Jenn had been seeing other men for the entirety of our relationship, but that didn't matter anymore. I had found the one I was supposed to be with. The pregnancy sped up the process, to be sure, but Valerie and I were of the same mind and same heart on this one. We went together and picked out our rings in mid-March. On April 4, 2008, we were married.

There have been more than a few bumps in the road from that day to this one, but each time we've struggled, we've grown closer together. That pregnancy turned out to be our son, Leyton. At our 20 week ultrasound, we were told that Leyton (who hadn't been named yet) had gastroschisis, which is a birth defect that causes the intestines to push through an unclosed hole in the umbilical cord. The next few months were filled with stress of not knowing whether or not our child would live, let alone what his condition might mean. We had weekly trips to Columbus for ultrasounds and my relationship with Valerie was strained at best. The fact is that were really didn't know each other when we got married, so that compounded with the normal pregnancy issues and the stress of this diagnosis made life hell. There was also, of course, the fact that Valerie's first marriage had produced two small children and I was having to adapt to being a dad for the first time, and without a chance to really get to know the kids, either.

I can't tell you whether or not Valerie and I would have made it without Leyton. I lean towards no. When he was born on October 9 of that year, he had to spend 24 days in Children's Hospital waiting for, then undergoing, then recovering from surgery. In that time, Valerie and I lived in the Ronald McDonald House across the street from the hospital. I drove almost two hours each way to work and back every day. Our room, like all those at RMH, had no television, so the time we spend there was in isolation, by and large. We were forced, thanks to Leyton, to get to know each other like we never had before.

Leyton's conception was at least in part responsible for the timing of our marriage. Leyton's defect, which was successfully corrected with no further issues at all, was very much responsible for our truly falling in love with each other.

Valerie and I have now been married over three years. I can't recall a time, without trying, that we were ever apart. She and I share a trust that I have never known before and she puts up with most of my abrasiveness as well. There have been other trying times along the way, but nothing like what we went through over the last 16 weeks of her pregnancy with Leyton. During that time, there was more than one day that I wondered if we would make it at all, let alone still be together three years later.

17 months ago, Valerie and I welcomed Amity to the mix and the family seems complete. Of course, you never know what might happen if you're not actively NOT trying to get pregnant again.

Nothing that happened with Jenn was what I had wanted, but it all added up to me meeting Valerie. Nothing that happened with Leyton's diagnosis was what anyone would want, but it lead to the strengthening of my marriage. It's funny how life throws you things that seem so terrible at first. I don't know how much I might have believed this before all the above took place, but I can say for certain right now that everything truly must happen for a reason. And I am so glad that everything that happened, happened exactly the way it did. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.

On our three-year anniversary, Valerie posted the following on her facebook status: "I'd like to tell you that three years ago today I married my best friend, but in reality, three years ago today I married a stranger who became my best friend." I don't think I'd be very happy at all if one of my kids winds up doing something as stupid as Valerie and I did, but who's to say it wouldn't work? It has been one strange trip, but the journey to here has been incredible. I might just be the luckiest man alive.