Thea’s Story

It All Started With A Baseball

Atif and I are both teachers – we worked together for one very fateful year and fell in love shortly thereafter.  A bunch of coworkers went out to a now defunct restaurant, called “Strawberries” named after baseball player, Darryl Strawberry. It is funny that Atif and I went to a “Mets” Bar because he was definitely one of the biggest Yankee fans I ever met. We spent a few hours getting to know one another and all of the other people in the room kind of faded away. Then, Mr. Ron Darling – one of the biggest Met players “back in the day” walked in. Atif knew that my son Alex was a huge Met fan and told me to wait one sec and ran out to his car. He came back with a New York Mets Baseball and handed it to me , instructing me to “go have it signed!” How on earth the man had a Met’s Baseball in the back of his trunk I couldn’t fathom. I had the ball signed by Mr. Darling and was very excited to bring it home to my son. Before we left, Atif excused himself to the men’s room, and when he came back he just simply sauntered over and planted a huge kiss on me! I was not expecting it in the least bit, and I didn’t realize then that those lips were the last lips I would ever kiss! He has great lips, by the way. lol