I Met A Dying Man.

Part 2

By 6:30am we had rented 2 bicycles.

“This is beautiful!?” I exclaim, referring to the ASU Tucson campus. Three laps around a fountain at my request. Earlier, in the hotel room, we discussed a need for sunscreen and a CVS.

“Look! A CVS!” Sunscreen, water bottles. A tiff on the way back to the hotel because he almost got us killed.

“I need you to be more aware of your surroundings. I feel very unsafe on bicycles, very out of control. You’re better on them. Please lead me well. Communicate better.” I’m using my teacher voice, the one I inherited from my papa. The one I use when I teach my students on Fridays, and every day of my life with my children. I’d rather lecture than connect; I am a nightmare sometimes.

He falls over after getting a wheel stuck in a trolley track. Maybe I’m a better biker than I think I am?

By 7:10 we are rooftop dwellers, suited for bathing and sun exposure, screened appropriately because I don’t want to get cancer again. Lord, not melanoma…

“How are we the only ones up here!?”

“I guess not everyone has four kids.” He smiles and shrugs.

The pool overlooks dusty Tucson and a dusty mountain ridge. I swim up behind him, we’re sailing across a dusty sea now.

“I speak open sails over you. Your strong, courageous heart at the helm. I speak joy and smiles over you. I speak beauty over you. I speak fortune and wealth and blessing over you and your household.”

(I snuck that last part in, for I am a part of his household, and I sense some fun Italian adventures in our future.)

He kisses me. I feel it. I feel him. I love him all the way. I hate that one day I’ll have to exist without him, somewhere—anywhere. Maybe?

“We need to figure out what temp this water is. When we have a pool, it needs to stay at exactly whatever this is.” I say.

“It is perfect.” He replies.

I’m looking at how strong and jiggly my legs look through the aqua blue ripples. Once my youngest daughter told me she loved how wiggly my legs are.

“Why?!” Not ashamed, just purely excited.

“Because they remind me of waves in California.” She pauses, I am her captive… “and waves make me feel calm.”

I can’t make this shit up…

We’re in a dusty sort of heaven, where the mattresses aren’t great but the pool temperature is. It’s 8am and God must’ve reserved the entire pool just for us, because we’re still the only ones here

.

“I love that neither of us have perfect bodies. That I am big, and you are smaller. But that we look capable and strong. We look like we care just enough, but not too much.”

He nods. “It looks like we love these bodies.”

“Oh I don’t love my body. I think it looks like we are IN these bodies.”

And we are, so inside our own selves, so inside each other. So safe to exist in our gnarled humanity. The last couple months have felt brutal. Punches from every direction, scary invitations and even scarier decisions to make. We hear voices from afar asking us to believe in the biggest, brightest versions of our selves.

We have all the tools we need. We have the team. We have four healthy, rowdy children who know about the importance of hydration, nature, and protein. And we have each other. On the top of the world, sailing into something that feels simultaneously known and unknown.

We can barely make out the shape of what’s ahead, but we trust the wind—the voice—taking us there.

I met a dying man sixteen years ago. I was driving the car the Campus Crusade was using for the Homecoming parade. His roommate sat on the open hatch, tossing candy to everyone while I slowly drove through campus with the music blaring. His roommate on the open hatch got thirsty, and the dying man delivered his water bottle. Rode his bike right up to the car in the middle of the parade. Then noticed the girl driving it, her shoulders hunched up trying to mash her ears closed—the music was very loud.

“Fade it to the back!” He yelled out, riding alongside my open window and motioning with his hands. He repeats himself, “FADE IT TO THE BACK!!”

He’s been solving my problems ever since.

I met a dying man 16 years ago, and I married him. It was the best decision I ever made.