How I met your mother.
On the 26th of January 1996 I arrived in a new land. An island far to the south, far from my home and my family. I had packed up all my worldly possessions and
travelled to Launceston, Tasmania to start an internship. Why I was taking this sudden tangent in my studies might be the subject of another Blog, but for this story all that matters is that the journey was taken.
There is part of me that is writing this account of the significant events that occurred on the 27th of January so that should any of my offspring ever travel back in time in a Delorean or some other flux capacitor powered vehicle they might have enough information so as not to cause any interference with their own existence through a disruption to the space time continuum.
As I mentioned before, I had arrived the day before and settled in, choosing the largest room with the best light in what would become a shared house for the “expats” and out-of-towners working on the National Christian Youth Convention to be held in January of 1997. Over the next few days other residents of the house would be arriving.
It was Mid-morning when the van arrived with a family load of people, a caged trailer towed behind with the furniture and belongings of one Amanda Bergman. There was a flurry of activity as Amanda, who was to be the Admin for the convention office on an Order of St Stephen placement for the year, and her family installed her belongings and a marvellous array of home cooked food into the house. I joined in the commotion helping where I could with the larger pieces of furniture.
After everything was in, the Bergman family asked me if wanted to join them for lunch. They were heading out to the local Sizzler, a local all you can eat buffet long since lost in restaurant history. I accepted the invitation knowing that “all you can eat” was a good deal for me at 24 years of age!
We all loaded up our plates and had started eating when Amanda’s older sister could be seen at the end of the table contemplating a peach, she had collected from the fruit section of the buffet. A discussion soon spread around the table about whether the peach was ripe or not. Her sister passed the peach to other family members who each in turn gave the fruit in question a squeeze or a sniff, inspecting its colour and texture, each remaining uncertain about its readiness for consumption. Would it be sour or sweet? Perhaps it might be astringent or hard to chew? Finally, the peach was handed to Amanda who also considered its nature and then handed it to me.
“Peach” by vtc160094694 is licensed under CC0 1.0
I held the peach up as the eyes of this family I had just met fell upon me smiling and said, “there is only one way to find out for sure” with that, I took a bite out of the peach with a crunch. It was just under ripe as I recall, and the moment took the family at the table by surprise. For a moment that seemed like an eternity no one spoke, laughter followed, and the rest is history.
I am not sure if there is a moral to this story, nor do I want to risk rewriting history in hindsight by attempting to create one. I will say that even though I was far from home I had found the hospitality of family.
I had also unknowingly met the person who would become a closest friend and partner in life’s Journey. Since then we have been biting into the fruit of life and faced sweet and sour together. It has been 24 years now since that day and I was 24 years old at the time, all the days that follow are those where I known my Love longer than I have not.
And so to my descendants, should you travel in time and need to know, that’s how I met your mother.
