Valentine's Day

“If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” - Mother Teresa

God first put Rachel in my life 6 years ago. I didn't know Rachel had CF until the second time we saw each other. I was completely taken with her from the moment I saw her, and her condition (which I knew nothing about) didn't change anything. Rachel and her father accompanied the band I was in to a show we played in NYC, a few weeks after I met her. Rachel was on IV's at the time, and while she was in the club restroom starting her bubble her father, Sam, turned to me and said "Let me tell you, her disease doesn't stop her from doing anything she wants to do. She's an accomplished ballerina, she's going to Shepherd University in the fall, and she doesn't let being sick hold her back." Although I hardly knew her, I agreed with him and said that I wouldn't have even known she was sick from the things they were telling me about her. Her strength was so attractive to me, among the millions of other amazing things about her. I wanted to be with her so badly even then.

Rachel and I started hanging out as friends after that show. I learned more about CF by talking to her, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it too much. One night I got on the computer and looked up as much as I could about CF. After reading more about the symptoms, medications, therapies, treatments, and average lifespan of people with CF, I broke down. I cried until I was exhausted and fell asleep. I can still remember exactly how I felt every time I hear Muse's "Ruled by Secrecy" and "Blackout" since I was listening to those two songs that night. The next day I hardly talked. I was torn to pieces inside about a girl I hardly knew, but loved deeply.

Over the next year she started college and we hung out less and less. Once I started at Shepherd, we started to meet up once a week or so to hang out in between classes. Every time I saw her, all of the feelings I had for her when we first met came flooding back. The spring semester of my freshman (her sophmore) year she told me that she was being evaluated for a double lung transplant. She was going through some other tough things at the time, and I was so glad to be the person she vented to. I wanted so badly to be with her because I wanted to make her feel even the slightest bit better amidst the storm of a life she was currently having. I wanted to make her feel as beautiful as I knew she was. To make her feel as loved as she was.

That summer her health took a great turn for the better and she no longer needed the transplant then. I personally grew up a lot that summer and when we started Shepherd together again in the fall, our relationship began to change. We constantly  flirted with each other, sat together for hours in between classes, had stories and jokes only funny to us, and watched movies on the weekends. A month into the semester I asked her to be my girlfriend after a date to Winchester, WV (classy...). She was my first "real" girlfriend, and to be completely open...my first "real" kiss. Now I had been in love with her for 3 years, but I finally told her one month into our dating. A month or so after that I told her I wanted to grow old with her and have children (I don't waste time, haha). Before long we talked about getting married. I proposed to Rachel shortly after our 2nd year anniversary. We set the wedding date for September of the following year, but early in 2010, her health began to decline and she was hospitalized for almost a week.

One day while we were eating together in the hospital cafeteria, we decided that we didn't want to wait any longer to get married. The doctors had brought up the idea of a transplant again and we thought that if she needed it later in the fall, the stress of a transplant and a wedding would just be too much. We told her parents about our decision and we immediately began changing our wedding plans. She got better and continued to do better all spring and through the beginning of summer.

We were married July 10th of 2010. We had just over 1 month of newlywed bliss before things got worse with Rachel's health again. Two days after her 23rd birthday she was hospitalized with a bad lung infection. A team of doctors came into the room and spoke with the two of us, telling us that it was time to move towards a double lung transplant. Cue the Muse songs. We cried together for a while, knowing what was ahead of us. We had been married for 6 weeks and were about to embark on a journey that no one should have to go through, much less in the first months of their marriage.

So here we are, 6 years friends, 3 years together, 7 months married, 6 months dealing with the transplant, 3 months on the list. And you know what? I wouldn't trade places with anyone in the world. Not before, not now, not ever. Rachel is God's perfect gift to me and not a day goes by that I don't thank Him for her. She's my best friend and I love every second with her. She has made me a stronger man and happier than I could ever be with anyone else in any other situation. The Mother Teresa quote really hit me the other day when I read it, because many times when Rachel is feeling terrible, the only thing I can do to help is to love her; to love her until it hurts...until she no longer feels hurt, but loved.

I hope you all have someone incredible to love like I do, and are loved by someone as much as she loves me. If so..don't just say it, show it. Happy Valentine’s Day. – Jonny