Ambushed: An Uplifting Story by a Determined Man

It was the summer of 1986 and I had just graduated from high school and was in the process of preparing to embark upon my freshman year of college at the University of North Florida. Vivian, in contrast, was preparing to enter the 11th grade at William M. Raines High School. August 13, 1986 was the official date we became a couple, and on October 31, 1992 I proposed and we became engaged. We courted for a total of seven years prior to marriage. We became the model couple at church because of the Christian standards we maintained during our courtship. It was common knowledge that we both were virgins and remained virgins until we married on June 26, 1993. We were both recent college graduates each working a full-time job, which enabled us to purchase our home within the first year of our marriage. So, from my perspective we had done everything correctly and were guaranteed to have a successful marriage and family. Yes, I knew we would deal with some of the typical challenges that marriages experience within the first five years – communication issues, learning and coping with each other’s imperfections, dealing with differences that seem nonessential when dating, but become center stage after marriage, and learning how to balance work and family once kids came into the picture.

As a couple, we were traveling a road that had a few speed bumps; but, for the most part, it was a good road, one with no bend in the foreseeable future. Yes, we were young and enjoying life. We lived in a middle-class neighborhood, with everything except the white picket fence. We were two working professionals with expectations of a limitless future, a future where we envisioned raising kids, traveling, pursuing entrepreneurship opportunities and reaching our elderly years together. As a happily married couple, I recall moments where “welcome to our world” became a phrase we constantly used because it was a world full of dreams and an optimistic outlook on life. It seemed as if our world was allowing us to become impregnated with dreams daily. For Vivian, there was the dream of establishing a five star beauty and spa salon. For me, there was a dream of traveling the world and offering professional development seminars for fortune 500 organizations. However, our dreams had to confront the harsh reality of being placed on hold due to being AMBUSHED by a terrible disease.

The rain has subsided, and it’s Friday evening as I’m sitting in Cracker Barrel alone and quietly, waiting for the waitress to bring my meal. While patiently waiting, I began to survey the guests assembled in the restaurant and noticed several couples within my view…It was the scenery of the various couples that caused me to have a melancholy mood – the young couples caused me to reminisce of how things were when Vivian and I first met; the middle-aged couples caused my mind to be dominated by the thoughts of all the things Vivian and I would not be able to do as a family with our daughters; the older couples made me feel as if Vivian and I were being robbed of the opportunity to grow old together. I realized we would have no story of how we raised our daughters together. Now, to my surprise, I realized life had brought me to a bend in the road that I never expected, a bend that has become a journey but has not reached its final destination.