It Starts Sometime Around Midnight

Last night my phone rang just after midnight. I was in bed and figured the call had to be a wrong number, totally not worth getting up and stumbling to my purse for. I kind of wish now that I'd had a little birdie tell me to run, not walk to pick up the phone.

Before I went to sleep last night I was writing in my journal trying to express how happy I was feeling. I thought about all the good things I have going for me and how I just keep on putting checks beside things on my dream list. Happiness isn't something you can keep in a jar and look at on the shelf whenever you happen to think of it.

Remember the day
Cause this is what dreams should always be
I just want to stay
I just want to keep this dream in me

--Losing Your Memory, Ryan Star

I'm not about to take you off a cliff with me. This isn't that kind of story. This is actually one of those stories where things get even better than I knew my world had room for at the moment. See, this morning at 6:30 while I was waiting for my oatmeal to finish cooking in the microwave, I picked up my Blackberry and checked my missed calls and a text message. They were from Kristin, not a wrong number. She had called me to tell me that she got the call from Ottawa. She was getting her heart.

Kristin has said that sometimes she would forget that she was waiting. Truthfully, I had forgotten too, even though just last week I was at her place to help her celebrate her second anniversary with her LVAD--the pump that was doing the work of her left ventricle. I've only ever know her as this girl who was the best, most inspirational example of how to wait for something big.

In November we were driving out of town for a school presentation and she told me about this guy she had started seeing. I was all giddy for her because like any twenty-eight year old she'd gone through her share and more of bad dates, mismatches and disappointments.

"It's a Christmas miracle!" I said with glee and then started gushing about ice skating dates, mistletoe and hot cocoa by the fire.

"Stop it! You're such a Charlotte!" She said, referencing the classic and romantic character of Sex and the City fame. I protested this because I fancy myself much more of a Carrie, and like Carrie, I saw the cute story unfurling in all of this. First she was getting her romance heart and then the physical heart would follow, I was certain of it.


When Kristin and I go out and do talks to high school students she tells the story about the time she got a call to go to Ottawa only to have to turn around and go home because the heart ended up not being good. Kristin says that when she got the call she started phoning everyone she knew. "I think I phoned my grade two teacher," she would always say. When I got the news today I felt the same way. I just wanted everyone to know that something really, really wonderful happened today. And yes, she does have a tough road to full recovery ahead, but this is a strong girl with a lot of love around her. And for now, we're just all so happy that the long wait is over.