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“A giggle is like tickling the heart.”

Bud eyed the cute young girl across the room. She was serving punch and chatting with guests. Occasionally, she giggled, and he loved it. She must be Dick’s date, he thought. His brother always snagged good looking girls.

Myra noticed the young man checking her out. Each time she looked in his direction, his gaze shifted away from her, which made her giggle again. Her date nudged her just as another giggle was about to erupt.

“What’s so funny, Myra?”

“That guy over there makes me laugh. Who is he?”\

Dick broke into a generous grin. “That’s Buddy ... my baby brother, and I don’t blame you for laughing. C’mon. I’ll introduce you. He can look after you while I find some, uh, fire water.”

And so it began ...

Buddy had been home only a day from the seminary where he was studying for the priesthood. He had been ambivalent about becoming a priest, but meeting Myra that Valentine’s Day in 1962 erased all doubt. God brought me to this party to meet her, he thought. I knew there had to be a reason ...

Later, much later, when Bud recounted their first meeting, he always said, “My brother asked me to look after her, but he didn’t put a time limit on it.”

It surprised no one when two years later, on Valentine’s Day, Myra and Bud were married. For the next thirteen years, Bud worked two jobs while going to night school; Myra had babies: a daughter and a son born eleven months apart. Maintaining her natural sense of humor when they were little was not always a walk in the park.

“It was like having twins. If one of them got in trouble, the other one did, too. By the end of the day, I was tearing out my hair strand-by-strand but Bud’s sense of humor always managed to turn things around. He would come home wearing a Halloween mask, or stand on his head when the kids were cranky. In no time, we were in stitches. Like most families, there were rough patches, but that’s all they were. We made it because we never lost each other ~ even when we felt the situation was lost to us.”

Not long ago, Myra experienced what she called “a silly party” in her head: her speech patterns were scrambled. Her sentences made perfect sense to her, but sounded ridiculous to others. Most people would have been scared to death. Not Myra. She said, “I’m making a list of the odd things I say so I can create my own dictionary. I’ll be the life of the party!”

Her odd speech patterns first became noticeable when she told Bud she needed muffins for her hands because they were cold.

“Muffins? What do you mean?”

“Muttons. You know ... for my hands.”

Bud’s alarm bells went off. Realizing that she’d meant to say mittens, he found gloves for her cold hands and tried to hide his concerns.

When the silly parties in Myra’s head invited more and more strange “guests” inside to play word games, her doctor suggested a MRI.
“I know I talk funny, but I haven’t said anything inappropriate yet. Maybe I should wait till I do,” Myra told Bud.

He grinned. “Honey, the MRI isn’t scheduled for two weeks. That’s plenty of time for you to get ... ahem ... inappropriate. You can practice on me ~ I’ll be happy to help you be ... ahem ... less appropriate.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled, signaling what they both already knew ~ that no matter how the test came out, the strength of their love and their healthy sense of humor would see them through.

Myra giggled, and when she did, Bud was swept back to Valentine’s Day fifty years before when the melodious sound of a young girl’s laughter drifted across a crowded room and changed two lives forever.

“When you smiled, you had my undivided attention.
When you laughed, you had my urge to laugh with you.
When you cried, you had my urge to hold you.
When you said you loved me, you had my heart forever.”

bobandsandysb Such a lovely "how did you meet?" story. I wish you well and not saying the correct word isn't that bad, we do that all the time between us. Wishing you lots of happy years to come. One of many of your "Starbucks" friends love, xoxo Sandy & Bob
Mon Feb 6, 2012, 8:30:06 PM EST

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