But this morning I was thinking about Kurt and I and how rare we are becoming in the world...
Why rare? Well, allow me to elucidate.
We first met one another in 9th grade homeroom in Hazel Park. He loved my hips in my pink bell bottoms and I just thought he was the most handsome thing I'd ever seen. We would say a brief hi or whatnot, but I was always far too afraid to actually talk to him until a friend invited me to her house and she lived directly across from Kurt's family. Her brother, who was Kurt's friend, invited him later for the movies their brother-in-law was bringing. I was nervous as all get out. He came and in between the movies, which were Laurel and Hardy's... he taught me how to shoot rubberbands with my fingers. It was awesome. Needless to say when my dad came and got me that night he knew something was different and perhaps he sensed he was losing his baby... but he smiled and loved it all the same.
Well, 9th grade ended and I ran home with my small yearbook, showed it to my mom and asked her what she thought of 'that' boy... Kurt. Cute, she said. I said most defiantly, "That's the boy I'm going to marry." She smiled at me, like mom's tend to do at outrageous statements made by their kids... I still grin over it.
Well, we both went to Johnson and 10th grade kind of came and went, not much to talk about. I kind of followed him around in the hall, learned he played the trumpet and through my sister, who 'worked' in the school office, what his birthday was, almost a month later to the day than mine. All our numbers are exactly the same, for any numerologists out there.
The summer I spent time with my sister and JAWS, JAWS and my sister, when she goof called him, set the phone down and left for work. Chagrin, I was forced to pick it up and talk to him. It wasn't until later, I think in October, when I called him myself and asked if he wanted to go to the Sadie Hawkin's dance with me. He said no. I was devastated. Then he said, "But I'll do something else." Well, I took him to see JAWS of course. We still didn't see ourselves as a couple, but we were talking on the phone a lot, he came to a party I had... it wasn't until that November that we decided we were an 'item'. And from that moment on we were inseparable. Where I was, Kurt was. Where Kurt was, I was. We started dating at sixteen, in 1976. Wow.
Two years later we walked down the aisle together. I never asked my mom what she thought of my 9th grade prediction, but I knew.
In and out, through all the shit... its funny to think that we're going on forty-eight years of marriage this November and yes, that's still not that rare, but here's the odd thing about us two...
We don't eat meat, don't drink, don't smoke anything, take no drugs, believe in God, love our privacy, eat the best we can, have a language all our own, appreciate who and what the other is, love each others abilities and depend on them, we love each other madly, admire each other, can't be without each other. We are best friends, mentors, lovers, disciplinarians, coaches, comedians, teachers, still love fondling one another's naughty bits and relishing in the warmest hugs during dark hours.
We have never been with other people in any sense of the word and never wish to be. I suspect when one of us passes the other will go immediately as well, that's how bound we are to one another.
When I put in a flashdrive of the music from our era... even though we both have graying hair, our bodies aren't what they once were... we need to see one another closer through our bifocals... it's still as if we're back in our 1970 Skylark, driving over to A&W to have a rootbeer float. No time has passed. And, I suspect, that is the grandest thing about being with him and him with me... we're one, always have been, always will be. And what a glorious feeling that is.
I love you with all my heart, soul and life, Kurt... Thank you for being mine, in every sense of the word. 💘💘💘