Our journey began in October 2000 at one of my best friends, Jaime Quave’s apartment who also lived with another very good friend of mine, Amanda Zewe and she also shared the apartment with her boyfriend Davin Siekkinen. That fateful night in October, I was feeling under the weather (you know runny nose and a sore throat) Jaime had invited me over to her apartment for dinner. After talking me into it I decided to go. I remember that she made spaghetti but little did I know her friend Mark (who I didn’t know) was also coming. I didn’t drive and Jaime was supposed to bring me home but I think she was cooking something up because the next thing I knew she said Mark would take me home. (Let me explain. Because of my disease I would not let anyone who I did not know very well see me walk. I was very uncomfortable with my disease and it’s affect on me. My disease had progressed to the point that I had to use a walker.) So the whole time while sitting at Jaime’s, and waiting for the night to end, I was thinking over and over in my head that Mark was going to watch me walk out of Jaime’s and all the way up to me apartment and of course as usual I would never see him again. I was so very nervous. But the night turned out very fun and when Mark brought me home it was a very enjoyable ride and I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be. So I was proven wrong! So I was like okay I can do this and we started spending more time together. Some time after I met him I went to the mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge with Jaime and Mark. Mark had asked me to go to a Christmas party that our friends were having. When we got to the mall, I sat front ways on my walker. I had to sit because walking around the mall tired me out too much to walk the whole way. So Mark started pushing and then decided to be funny, so he started running with me and that was fun until we hit a big crack in the cement and I went forward on my knees and then Mark landed on top of me. So not fun! I was so angry at him the whole day and I decided to make him squirm since we were supposed to go to my friend’s party later in theu night and he kept asking was I going to go with him. So I made him wait until an hour before the party and the whole time I was going to go but I didn’t let him know that, so I waited until he called an hour before and he apologized again and then I said okay I’ll go. LOL!
I didn’t have boyfriends in college, except for one, but I was always flirting a lot and loved to hang out! I was the virgin, a pretty young lady who had fun but never did naughty things. My lack of confidence and my insecurities with my body, even though I knew I looked good but I just thought no one will want me because of my medical issues. It was so hard for me to grasp that Mark could like me or even be with me.
We were both in our early twenties and just going with the flow of life. In the early part of 2001 we went on our very first vacation together and mind you he still had not asked me to be his girlfriend. So we went to Graceland and that was one of the places on my bucket list that I always wanted to go! Because everyone knew that I was a huge Elvis fan! I mean the man was hot!!! I remember when we got to the hotel and there was only one bed and I was like no way am I sharing a bed, but I did and I remember putting (I believe they were) pillows between us and I told him not to DARE cross that line. LOL! When we were on the way home I remember talking to him about when we actually started dating like there was no real date and he did not ask we just assumed. But it was all good.
We dated the beginning of 2001 and just hung out with each other’s families and friends. I remember the first time we went to Houston so I could meet his mom and her family. The night we got there and were about to go meet his mother at her job, we were in a car accident. And as crazy as this may sound I knew at that moment that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this man. It was the way that he took care of me and then loved me during that and there was no one else for me! Now meeting Mark’s Louisiana family was a whole different story! They were a bunch of down home French Cajun Christians and they were very loving and affectionate and I was so not used to that. As bad as that may sound I grew up in a family where we would kiss mom and dad good night but I never really remember a lot of “I love you’s”. Even though I knew they did and I knew my family would do anything for me and had already done so much in my difficult life. But I just did not remember “PDA” being a big part of my life. Don’t get me wrong I had a great childhood and my parents were those few parents that have stayed together through thick and thin and had raised three children two who have a Progressive, degenerative, life shortening disease. But I vowed if I were to ever have children that they would never grow up not hearing “I love you” from me. Life is too short not to tell those you love how you feel about them!
I started to go to church with Mark. Now I was raised Catholic and Mark was raised in a charismatic church so when we had started dating and living together, we were going to the church that I was attending when I met Mark which was Woodland Park Baptist Church. So on my birthday which was on a Sunday, September 2, 2001 we went to church and then Mark blindfolded me and then drove to his aunt’s trailer and had planned a surprise birthday party for my 25th birthday.
So during the party I am chatting away with friends while reading birthday cards and a friend of mine yells “Get on with it!” So I continue reading and the card is from Mark and he writes in it “Marry me” and then when I looked up he was down on one knee! I was never one of those girls who would daydream about their wedding and plan it out and all that! As far as my dreaming went was to simply have a boyfriend and holding hands with him. (Yes I know pretty naive! 🤣) I said yes and then our amazing life began!
We were married on May 11th 2002 at Woodland Park Baptist Church and brother Leon Dunn conducted the ceremony. I never imagined that I would be married despite going through all the crazy things that I had been through. But I can honestly say that there is no one that I would rather spend my days going gray with than Mark! He has a heart of gold and would give anyone the shirt off his back! He does things for me that most husbands would not do! We have been through building one house then moving to a very tiny apartment and then finally building our forever home in Loranger but it’s not new anymore, we have been in this house about 17 years and still going strong! Follow me as I go through our life, struggles, new life and future!
