Something Sweet About Someone

Greg Ryan is my husband of almost 10 years. He is, without question, one of the sweetest and funniest people I've ever met. He has no idea what a great guy he is, which is nice too.

So here's a Greg story. We met in 1996, three years after I lost Will Rockett, my first husband, to a brain tumor. Greg was always respectful of Will's memory, gave me space with it, but asked lots of questions about The Rockett Man because, oddly enough, he said he wished he had known Will. Okay, that's not even the sweet part.

We never needed to be around each other 24/7 and since our taste in movies doesn't always coincide we often go to movies separately with friends. He sees the big-blockbuster-blow-'em-ups and I go off to see my dark subtitled celluloid. Back in '96 John Travolta was in a film called "Phenomena." Okay, it wasn't the greatest film of all time, but I wanted to see it because of the subject matter. A man suddenly develops incredible psychic abilities after having a vision of a UFO or comet. Turns out, Greg had already seen it and I started to make plans to go with a friend. But he said he'd see it again and wanted to go with me. Well, if you've seen the film you know where this is going. Turns out, the Travolta character didn't see a comet; he had a brain tumor. And after everyone on the screen and in the audience falls absolutely in love with this great guy, he dies. I, of course, am crying my eyes out. I think it actually took me a few minutes to regain my composure after the credits rolled to go back outside without having snot roll down my face.

Days later, I ask Greg why he wanted to see it again. And he said, "I knew it would be hard on you and I wanted to be there for you when you saw it." And that got me crying all over again.

Now off you go. Go think about something sweet about someone you know.

PS Soon after, I told my sister-in-law Victoria about this. She said, "You better not screw things up with this guy!"