It’s hard to believe that I’ve been 60 years old for almost a whole year. Sunday will be the longest birthday I have ever had in my whole life that I can remember… (Don’t forget to set your clock back on the 4th…)
But even more than that, I get to go to a wedding in Tulsa the weekend of this birthday. My friend Joey, who I met thanks to us both being gifted with an acoustic neuroma, reached out to me via Facebook so many years ago when she was first diagnosed.
We became internet friends. We post on each other’s Facebook pages. I think we have mailed stuff back and forth. I’ve listened to her on the radio. One day, years after, we actually talked on the phone. We talk about diets, exercise, sign language and Deaf culture. But we have never met in person.
She got engaged to the love of her life in a very romantic and frightening weekend last year.
When she wrote to me later and said “would it be weird if I invited you to my wedding?” My natural response was “Only as weird as it would be if I showed up.”
Even when I made my plane and hotel reservations, I kept texting her, “are you sure it’s ok that I come?”
So I leave tomorrow morning to go to a place I have never been, to attend the most important day of a woman I have never met.
I can’t wait to meet her and hug the stuffing out of her.
I’m guessing I’ll start crying the moment she stands in front of me.
My acoustic neuroma is the gift that keeps on giving.