Ten years ago this week....

Ten years ago on the last Thursday in September, my future husband asked me for my phone number. I was out with a girlfriend, Melissa, who knew him from grade school. I spotted that curly hair, big smile and dimples a mile away and we hit it off that night, although he was shy about asking me for my number. Andrew called me a few days later and we spoke on the phone for over an hour about our lives. He wanted to take me out on a date that weekend however I had to pass. I was going in for surgery in a few days and wanted to rest up. I felt compelled to be honest with him rather than make up an excuse not to go on that date. Andrew called me the day after my surgery to see how I was feeling. I felt physically fine when I spoke to him the next day, although I was a bit surprised that he took the time to call me....we had only exchanged numbers less than a week before.

Over the next day, I started to develop a lot of pain, I then had a very high fever of 104, and I was becoming dehydrated. A day later, I found myself in the hospital for a week and a half with a major infection. I don't remember the first two days in the hospital. I remember my parents sleeping in the chair by my bedside. I remember not being able to walk on my own or eat the whole time. That was one of the hardest moments of my life. I was fighting for it. I did not know how sick I was at the time, however there were all sorts of doctors in my room, often. A few days before I left, I was starting to feel like my strength was coming back. I was taking small steps around the oncology floor that they had me on. I had a private room until that day, they placed a woman named Isabelle in with me. She was in her late seventies, married to a man named Jasper. Her son and his wife would visit her often. Isabelle, knew I was very sick. I did not know why she was in the hospital at first. They had moved her to the oncology floor from another one. Her son told us that she had a brain tumor.

As the next couple days went by, and I started to regain my personality, I found myself in conversation with Isabelle. She was such a loving, strong and determined woman. I found my own self feeding off of her ability to be strong in her life, she was amazing. The day before I left the hospital, I knew I was going to leave her, we had become friends. I wanted to give her a piece of my heart, something that she gave to me during those dark days. I wrote a poem entitled "Isabelle the Great". She was so honored and touched when I read the copy of the poem to her and her family on the day I left.

A few years ago, my parents received a letter from Isabelle's husband, Jasper. It was at Christmas time. He wrote a note to me and my parents wishing us happy holidays. He told us of Isabelle's passing the year before to the brain tumor. At the end of his note Jasper wrote, "We had a wake for Isabelle where we read your Poem for all to here "Isabelle the Great." I began to cry, was this possible? How brief my meeting was with Isabelle and her family, I was able to thank her for bringing me back to life when she lost her own. She gave me my heart back, when I felt so weak. I found my ability to love during that time in the hospital, and for that I will forever remember.

And so on the last day of my stay in the hospital, my father came from home. Dad said that this guy Andrew had left a few messages on their answering machine. It was a Friday, so he brought Andrew's number with him...I picked up the phone and dialed it. Andrew answered on the other end, I told him where I had been and that I was coming home. What I did not know is that Andrew thought I had blown him off...he had made plans for that evening to go on a date with a friend. He hung up the phone with me and cancelled that date. That was the beginning of my life with my future husband, my soulmate...and a moment meeting an angel in heaven, Isablle the Great.