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I’m not usually one for landmark posts because I felt nothing in my life was really worth writing about. I always felt my life was typical, nothing out of the ordinary happened. I joined Hatrack when I was in high school under the name “Wetchik”. I later changed it to “Nick” because people who are unfamiliar with the Homecoming series that it meant “Wet Chick”. I remember finding Hatrack when I was looking for more of OSC’s works online since Ender’s Game was required reading for freshman English. I was amazed by the humor and intelligence of this community. I remembered having a lot in common with many users here, with a minor disagreement with Primal Curve about some music preferences, which he still teases me about to this day (namely Creed). So what I would like to say at beginning of this post is thank you for being the community that you are, for being a place I can bounce off ideas about pretty much anything from computers to politics. Thank you for support in times of trouble, which I have had. I have grown a lot in no small part due to my interaction with this community. What is the purpose of a landmark post? I used to think it was for attention-getting, until I found something I had experienced in life that was worth writing about, not for sharing as much as the act of writing it itself. I write this because I feel it helps me understand myself better. This landmark is about my late fiancée.
The most important experience in my life was my fiancée Amanda. We met when I was 14, but only briefly. I still remember sitting with her and talking for hours while our parents were out having fun, for they were friends (which is how we met). She was one of the most warm-hearted people I had ever met. I knew we clicked from the first few minutes of talking, but I was only there for a day.
I went home, but we would occasionally see each other on vacations our families shared. We were both quite shy at the time, being about 16. It was my sister who gave her my number since she saw that Amanda had a crush on me, but I was too shy to notice. We started emailing and eventually calling each other on a regular basis. We were really good friends at first, and went into a 150 mile long distance relationship. Much as it galls me, my sister matched me up right for once.
She had kidney disease from a very young age however, and we were quite open about talking about what would happen if her transplanted kidney were to fail. I told her I would be with her every step of dialysis, every step of anything required to keep her as healthy as possible, though I wished none of it would come to pass.
We both graduated high school in 2003. My income from my first job was not enough to move let alone live in the expensive area that she did, nor could she afford to move either. We both became frustrated and went our separate ways, only to find that we hated life apart. We still called each other, but we both found that it was a horrible decision that we both hated living with. We decided to get back together and I went to school full time and worked 30 hours a week.
She was the most encouraging when I was struggling to find the energy just to get through tech school. I finally graduated at the end of 2005, dipped into savings to move close to her and found a job in January of 2006. This marked the beginning of the happiest time of my life. We lived together and we were with each other constantly. We shared all the same friends. We still had our nights to ourselves, she would go out with the girls, me with the guys.
We were both happy. I had a bright career ahead of me, she had her business starting to take off, and all of our ducks seemed to be in a row. That was when her kidney was starting to lose its resilience in the middle of 2006. Her labs were continuing to decline and eventually had to go on dialysis. She developed epilepsy and had to start taking medicine for that. Her immune system weakened, and she got what we thought was a bad cold one night. It all happened so fast. I woke up, she seemed ok, she said goodbye. I asked how she was feeling and she answered with a groan but she said it would get better. I didn’t know that would have been that last time I talked to her.
I went to work and got the call from her mom. She was in the ICU. I rushed to the hospital only to find her sedated and unaware. I kept thinking that she dodged so many bullets in the past; this will just be one more. It turns out that her white blood cell count was so low that she no immune system to work with antibiotics the doctors were giving her. They were having no effect since it was an advanced strain of staph called MRSA. She fought for 2 days. I told her goodbye when the doctors told me it was time, unable to know if she could hear me, I think she did. I’m hoping she could feel the touch of her hand in mine when she passed.
She was the bravest and strongest human being I have ever met, I know I’ll never meet another like her. She was compassionate and sincere. She was genuine. She would have made for a very happy life had I married her. I don’t know yet the reason behind why I only knew her for such a short time, but I’m thankful that I got to know her as long as a I did.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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((((Nick)))) Thanks for sharing that.
