When Or Was Bob

My best friend gets married tomorrow. As we’ve celebrated the occasion all weekend and today, I can’t help of thinking back to the days when we would discuss the perfect guys for us. Kirsten has called the man she would marry and the love of her life “Bob” for as long as I can remember. We would laugh as we talked about what Bob would be like, and we got giddy looking forward to finally meeting him.

I remember the first time Kirsten told me about Or. She was a million miles away, but I could tell in her voice that he was unique -- unlike any other guy she had ever talked about. The first time I met Or, Kirsten had just moved back to the States; he had come home with her; and they had driven to Atlanta before Or flew back to Israel. They spent the night with me, and I got to see the way in which they interacted. It was instantly clear that this guy was special and that she was special to him. That was the first time in all my years of knowing Kirsten that I thought, “I think I just met Bob.” I’ve loved getting to know Or over the last couple of years, and I’ve loved seeing how perfectly he and Kirsten fit each other. I’m unsure what I pictured or what I thought Kirsten’s Bob would be like exactly, but Or is so much more than I could have imagined. In all of our idealistic musings about her life with Bob, I don’t think we ever realized just how happy he would make her and, as equally important, how happy she would make him. I can’t wait until tomorrow when Kirsten marries the love of her life, and dream Bob officially retires and steps aside for the reality of Or.