Eddie and I met over the summer when I was seventeen. He was twenty-two. We were on our first date, the movie “2001, A Space Odyssey” – my roommate in tow – by the end of September; we were pretty much smitten by October; we were in love by December.
He wore flannel shirts and a beard that touched his chest. His dad would offer every now and then (in his thick Romanian accent) to give him a dollar per hair if he’d shave, but Eddie wouldn’t hear of it. He was in the process of “finding himself” and was looking in the sink at the student union where he washed dishes, in his reflection in the windows of cars he washed at the Bee Clean Car Wash, in the monkey cages at the primate center where he did research and, finally in the tax preparation class he enrolled in at an H&R Block office down the street from the university.
When he retired three years ago, he was a vice president at Henry and Richard’s place.
Eddie and I have been on high roads and low roads and all the curvy ones in between. Thirty-five years after that first date - with Judy sitting in between us at the movie theatre - we couldn’t be better, thank you.
This guy has never drifted from my corner. He has always cheered me on, he has always given me a leg up, he has always made me laugh, he has always listened, he has always let me be quiet.
I have heard on more than a handful of occasions from my women friends, “Puhleeeeeeeze, can we clone him?”
This past week he has steered me back on course after my surgery. He has not left my side for a second. But here is the coolest part:
A good friend said that for now I am a fish swimming along with only one fin. Eddie and I both thought that was a sweet and endearing image to hold in our thoughts. I pretty much let it go once I heard it. But he mulled it over for a day or two and finally said to me, “But you know, you’re still the best fish in the sea.”
Need I say more about the good fortune I had to snare this guy??
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