The love for my Ern

As you read in my post yesterday, my twin sister and I are married to brothers.  Through the world of the internet, my sister met her husband through a chat room a little over 10 years ago.  He was I believe only 19 years old and going to UC Davis.  He has 2 brothers, one younger, and one older.  April starting spending a lot of time with Joel, and I, being her twin and that we always had the same circle of friends, soon started coming over to their apartment in Davis and socializing with Joel's brothers and their 1 other friend/roommate.  Ernie (or Ern as we call him for short) was just finishing his Psychology degree at UC Davis, and worked nights at a group home for trouble teen boys.  I rarely saw him, but in the evenings before he would leave for work.  He worked nights on the weekends, so socializing with him was few and far between.  After Joel and Ernie's younger brother and roommate went home for the summer, I began to spent some time with Ernie by myself.  It consisted of long talks late at night.  The boys, as April and I refer to them as, always said Ernie was quiet, and would be a great boyfriend or husband.  They encouraged me to look at it as a possibility.  At the time, I didn't like him in that way.

Then, during the summer of 2001, the four of us (Joel, April, Ern and I), decided to take a short 3 or 4 day trip to South Lake Tahoe.  We stayed in a little motel off the main highway in South Lake Tahoe.  We went to the beach and just enjoyed each other's company.  It was then that Ern and I started to spend more time with each other.  We would let April and Joel be together, so we would go to the beach at night, or go for walks.  After we left Lake Tahoe, we were going to meet up with mine and April's aunt and uncle who were camping at a lake called Pinecrest.  Pinecrest was a family tradition that goes back to my grandmother, who would go there as a child.  We took a highway over the east side of the Sierra Nevadas to Pinecrest lake.  I rode with Ernie in his car, so we had a long drive of just time to talk and listen to music.  It was then that I really started to realize that I liked Ern as more than just a friend.  I enjoyed his company, the way he thought, and his viewpoint on life and the world around him.  He respected me and cherished my friendship in a way that I had never had with a guy.  When I talked, he was fully engaged in what I was speaking about.  

And I tell him this over and over to this day:
That trip was the defining moment for me.  I realized that he was right there in front me the entire time.  The person I had always visualized that I wanted to have as a life partner.

He proposed to me on the anniversary of my heart attack.  He knew how special that, 2nd birthday as we call it, was to me.  We got married and had a wonderful daughter Natalie, in 2005.

Ern has a special bond with our daughter.  When Natalie was a baby, I would observe him from afar.  He would walk around with her, and talk quietly to her, carrying on a little conversation with her.  It touched my heart.  This picture, to me, defines Ern.  He has a gentle energy about him.  

My love for Ern runs deep not only because he is my husband and our daughter's father, but, because I respect him as a human being and all that he believes in.  He was born with an inate ability to sooth people and make them feel comforted.  Ern is my love.