Friday – First Focus
How did you meet your life partner, if you have one. Was it “love at first sight”? In French we say “coup de foudre” which literally means that you’re struck by lightning. I talked to my mom about the first time she met my dad, her life long friend and husband. She said it was a “coup de foudre”.
Going all the way back to 1963 or so, dad had been gone from Sweden for some time. He knew before he was a full grown adult that he wanted to leave the family farm in Sweden and go out into the world. So he worked in the Middle East and Africa some. In Gaza and in the Congo twice. At one point he came back home to Sweden with a gastrointestinal illness that needed hospitalization.
At this same time, my mom was working as a nurse in the swedish city near to where my dad grew up. Dad was transported from Stockholm to that hospital. Nurse and patient locked eyes, and they fell in love.
A couple years later, when (my future) dad asked (my future) mom if she would be willing to go live in Africa with him, she didn’t hesitate one moment. She had already been dreaming of going out into the world to work as a nurse. So, with wedding bands on their fingers and a little boy in tow, they moved to Liberia. The rest is history.
My closest friends know how I met my husband. I am not sharing that here. But it is thanks to one of my best friends, who also happened to later become my sister-in-law. She brought us together by cleverness and necessity in the middle of a summer night. However, at the time, I didn’t really think it was a meeting that would turn into anything. I wasn’t really looking. I had a life full of fun with my friends.
But my future husband knew. He felt it from the start. And a month or so later, when I was actually asking myself and the universe if I would be meeting someone lovely soon, we met again and then we slowly but steadily became best friends. Several years of maintaining a long distance relationship across the Atlantic Ocean….and the rest is history.
It has always fascinated me to learn how people meet. Care to share? Be well and take care of each other, sweet people.
