kisâkihitin – you are loved by me

Yesterday, someone asked me about how my husband and I met. I don’t get asked this question very often but when it happens I get this silly grin on my face, my eyes glaze over and my stomach feels lighter.

In the summer of 2005 I had just moved to Victoria after spending a year in Nanaimo attending Malaspina College/University. My summer job was working for the Metis Nation of Greater Victoria as their admin assistant. One day, this guy walked in to the office. Oooooooo eeeeeeee he was one good lookin’ guy. He introduced himself and told me that he’d just moved back from Montreal. He wanted to be closer to his family. I thought, hmmm. Nice guy, good values. We chatted some more, I told him about our monthly potlucks and of the employment training programs we were offering that summer. Eventually he left and I remember the other women in the office rushing in asking me what had just happened. I told them nothing. Period. They told me they certainly saw something good. And from there on the teasing started, the blushing and a lot of laughter. This guy kept stopping by the office that month for other things, which I didn’t mind. And then one day I dropped the boyfriend bomb on him. Yeah, did I forget to mention that I had moved to Victoria because of my boyfriend? Whoops. I remember the awkwardness of the situation and the look on his face. He stopped dropping by the office after that for some reason.

Over the next couple of years, our paths crossed again and again. Him and his mom would attend MNGV potlucks, we were  in a few of the same classes at UVIC, where we both got active in the Native Students Union and the LE,NONET program. There was even a time when I made an attempt on a first year Biology course (I barely passed on that one) and we tried studying together. Yep, it didn’t work, I found myself way too distracted by him just being him. The way he spoke, the way he looked, the way he would try to get me excited about cells and mitochondria and ATP and stuff like that. Many of my good friends will remember what it was like being in the basement of the NSU when he and I were in the same room. Me and my nervous cackle laughter and acting like I was busy. Him acting like he was busy in those silver Havaianas that he wore in the warmer months and cowboy boots in the winter months.

One afternoon a few of us were hanging out at the NSU and my friend’s daughter and I were playing M.A.S.H. I named off 4x boys names, 4x jobs, 4x cars, 4x living spaces, 4x cities, 4x numbers, 4x pets and then she did the spiral thing and I told her to stop. The game started and she began to count and cross things off. As she started to cross things off, I felt myself blushing like an 8 year old girl but also crossing my fingers that THIS would be my M.A.S.H., my future. I felt myself changing another shade of red as she read my future out loud for everyone to hear. He was was also in the room. I would one day become a dolphin trainer, who would live in a motel in Duncan with a dog and drive a Porsche while raising 13 kids with my husband, Ami.

As I write this I can’t help but laugh and cry a bit. Who knew that all these years later my life wouldn’t be so far fetched from that M.A.S.H. game? Thanks Emma. Just in case you need extra money while going off to university this fall, do your M.A.S.H. thing.

A few days from now, we will be reflecting, remembering and celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary. I am incredibly blessed to be sharing this crazy life with my husband and our two sons.

-Amanda Laliberte