FROM THAT SPARK

Dear Spike:

I'm not sure how it escaped me — and I'm not sure how I finally remembered, either — but this evening as I was sitting with your mother, it suddenly occurred to me...

... we have been together for 10 years.

I first met your mom in the kitchen of an apartment I shared with two roommates, Adam and Joel, in Corvallis.

I don't have the best memory in the world, but I remember that moment vividly.

She was wearing a pink sweater and black pants. He shoulder-length brown hair was pulled into a single ponytail. And she had the most striking eyes — one significantly more green, the other significantly more blue — I'd ever seen.

Just one problem: She was dating Adam.

Over the next few weeks we got to know each other, usually while waiting for Adam to get ready for their dates. He always seemed to take a really long time. And I didn't mind that one bit.

While she waited, we chatted. And while we chatted, we might have even flirted a bit.

And why not? She was funny and sassy and confident and intelligent. Absolutely beautiful. And while it seemed that she and Adam were having a good time together, it never seemed that their relationship was destined to be more than a college romance.

I learned that she was a local girl – she lived in north town with her parents. She learned that I was a bit of a cad — after a long relationship had gone sour, I was... um... exploring my new-found freedom.

I was getting close to graduation. She was in her freshman year. We both needed to take an astronomy class — and we agreed to take it together. At least, we reasoned, we'd have something to talk about when she was waiting for Adam.

Then, one day, Adam came home and told me that they'd broken up. No big deal, he said. They just weren't meant for each other.

And I started counting the days until our astronomy class began.

It didn't take long for me to convince her to ditch class...

... first for lunch at the New Morning Bakery, where we sat next to one another and she glibly mocked my vegetarian diet ...

... next for a picnic at Avery Park, where we shared strawberries and a bottle of wine and watched the Marys River trickle by.

I liked her. She liked me. But I was, I admit, a little standoffish. She knew I'd recently been seeing several women — and I didn't want her to think that she was just another one of the bunch.

Then, one evening, we took a stroll through her neighborhood and wound up facing one another on a sliding platform in the playground at her old elementary school.

I leaned forward. She did too.

I've shared a lot of great kisses with your mother, but none so soft and tender as that one. Ten years it has been, and I can still feel the wetness of her lips. I can still hear her stuttering breath as I touched the back of her neck. I can still see her coy smile as we parted.

It was only a matter of weeks later that we were living together. And just a matter of months before we were engaged. We were married in your grandparent's backyard on a stunning August night.

Ten years, we've been together. And while things are not always perfect — nothing in life is perfect, you see — I wouldn't change a thing.

Because out of that first meeting, there was a spark.

And from that spark, there was a kiss.

And from that kiss, there grew love.

And in that love, a family began.

No, nothing in life is perfect. But I couldn't imagine how it could be any better, either.

Ten years it's been. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Love,
dad