"Yourememberme?" Iquestioned, somewhat surprised, "but you never even called." It was Harry, a guy I had met a few weeks earlier in June while I was hanging out with Akosua Nkwantabisa, my friend from university. As it turned out, I had attended university with Harry’s brother, Osei Bonsu, aka Jiga. Coincidentally, that very same brother, Jiga, had also attended Prempeh College with my own brother. I remember Harry asking for my number the first time we met and me refusing to give it to him. However, he promised to get my phone number from our mutual friend and call me, but he never did. Now though, after chatting with him, I gave him my number, and told him that we would get married and move back to Ghana to make it a better place. We went on our first date a week after meeting at the event, and the rest was history. Interestingly, it felt like I had known him a long time, and I remember telling my closest friends (Yvonne, Jacqueline and Harriet), “Oh gosh! I met my husband today!” I was literally so sure about him, and I told him so, when next I met him. Apparently he had felt the same way about me. We got on ‘like a house on fire’ and would talk for hours on the phone! As our relationship deepened, we discovered yet another layer to our bond. Our fathers, it turned out, had been friends back in the 1950s, eventually losing touch formany years. The universe, it seemed, had orchestrated our paths to converge, reigniting this familial connection. And so, from that serendipitous encounter at the Miss Ghana event, a beautiful love story began to unfold. Two souls, connected by shared experiences and long-lost ties, embarked on a journey that would shape their futures and intertwine their destinies in the most extraordinary way. After dating for a while, I introduced him to my siblings. In July 2000, we attended three weddings in one day, and I felt a bit down for not catching the bride’s bouquet at the third wedding. It was reassuring when a big sister told me not to worry because I would likely get married before the girl who caught the bouquet. At that time, Harry was waiting outside, so I went out to go looking for him, only for him to go down on one knee and propose to me. Imagine the joy with which I rushed back inside to show my engagement ring to the girls. We got married in 2001; it was beautiful because it was the first time in our history that my entire family, that is, our parents, my siblings (Lydia, Philippine, Theodora and Cobi), my grandmother, nephews and niece were together. Four generations to witness a beautiful family event; that day in August 2001 was one of the happiest andmost memorable days of my life. In between when we first met and after the wedding, we travelled a lot. First, in 1998 to see my siblings in the States, then in 2000, we went to Rome to celebrate our engagement, then to meet Harry’s mum who was visiting his older brother, Osei Kwadwo, in Canada. We went off for our honeymoon in Cuba and Cancun, Mexico. Two souls, connected by shared experiences and long-lost ties, embarked on a journey that would shape their futures and intertwine their destinies in the most extraordinary way. “ 19 The Birthday Journal
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