Helena Brodsky Kemp

I’m an intelligent woman with thoughts and opinions of my own and I’ve never played the “dumb blonde” role in order to attract guys. For some reason, you’d think college guys would be attracted to smart women, not ditzy air heads. Or at least they wouldn’t be intimidated by smart women. C’mon, it’s the late 80s and it’s a coed university. For crying out loud, you’ve got to expect that there will at least be a few women out there with some brains. Granted, college is a time for exploration and spreading your wings, and many people do go a little crazy when first out on their own. People drink (sometimes too much), do drugs, whatever. Since I’m smart, and the guys at Kutztown appeared to only be interested in girls with big boobs and no brains, I didn’t date much. Even though I did have one ... er, two of those qualifications.

Don’t get me wrong. I had plenty of friends, both male and female. Except that it didn’t take me very long to discover that many (but certainly not all) of the guys who became my friend did so because I had a hot roommate. With brains. And no boobs. Go figure.

By the time I got to Kutztown, I’d done all my “wild child” things and was really ready to get down to business. I was planning to enjoy myself. Don’t get me wrong; I just wasn’t going to go dog nuts doing it. I started there as a second semester sophomore, transferring in midyear, with an Associate’s degree under my belt and looking forward to not working a full-time job while going to school full-time. I was planning to enjoy myself, make new friends, perhaps even get an education at the same time! I never planned on meeting my future husband, though. I was considered a non-trad student, one who didn’t fit the standard - graduate from high school, go to college right away - mold. I was a 22 year old undergrad, older than most of my classmates. I never really clicked with any of the grad students.

During my senior year in college, I took a few classes with a really cute grad student who was also extremely smart. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am not easily intimidated. But this guy intimidated the bejesus out of me. This guy was smart. No, seriously. I mean it. He was MENSA smart. Every time I opened my mouth to talk to him, ridiculous blitherings fell out. Oh, I tried to sound smart, but for the life of me, I sounded like I didn’t have 2 brain cells to rub together to say something even remotely intelligent. He made a great impression on me, but thankfully, I barely made one on him.

Fast forward several years. Hot roommate, Kris, and her husband are living in a duplex in a small town outside K-town. Next door is a young woman, about our age. We all became fast friends. I’d go visit some weekends and we’d order pizza, rent movies, go dancing, crack a few beers, BBQ in the summer. You know, hang. Little did I know that Kris and Sue, the girl next door, are plotting. Seems Sue has an older brother who she thinks would be perfect for me. They plot and scheme, trying to get us together. Plotting and scheming fails miserably. Weekends he can visit don’t work for me. Weekends I can come up don’t work for him. Weekends when we can both visit are few and far between and when they do coincide, something always came up and one or the other of us had to cancel. It seemed it wasn’t meant to be. Oh, and did I mention that I knew nothing of this?

Congratulations! Sue is getting married. We’ve been friends for several years now and of course I wouldn’t miss her wedding for the world. She’s a terrific friend and her soon-to-be husband is a great guy, too. Wedding weekend arrives and I plan on spending the whole weekend with Kris and Lew. At the reception, we have a grand time, laughing, talking, dancing, eating and drinking. Oh boy, did we do some drinking! During dinner, this really handsome groomsman is walking around the room, schmoozing people left and right when he comes to our table. I was just staring at him when the proverbial light bulb flashes. “I know you. You went to Kutztown!” He looks at me and smiles. He recognizes me, but just barely. Certainly not enough to

remember my name. I introduced myself to him. He said, “Hi, I’m Andrew, Susan’s brother.” He schmoozes our table a little more, and then moves on. A while later, he comes over to me and asks me if I’d like a drink and perhaps some fresh air on the terrace? He’s really cute, and of course I agree. I feel like I'm back in high school and the BMOC chats me up in class.

Out on the terrace, drinks in hand, we talk. And talk. And talk some more. About Freud, Jung, Ellis. And my favorite, JJ Rousseau. For many people this sounds crazy. But not for us. We’d talk for hours about psychology, and we’d argue. Freud was this. Jung was that. But what about what Kant said when ...? This could go on for hours, and sometimes did. We decided to go for a walk.

It was October and there was some mist on the grass. I was wearing this beautiful pair of navy peau de soie pumps, and never gave it a second thought, until later. I RUINED AN EXPENSIVE PAIR OF SHOES FOR THIS MAN!

We walked and talked. At one point we stopped talking and he put his hands in my hair, ready to pull me in for a kiss. Oh, he was smooth. My hair was damp and he felt it. He asked why. I said, “I don’t know. Must be dew.” I told you that when I got around this guy I was unable to make intelligent conversation. (And for many years later, we laughed about it. "Must be dew."

What a moronic statement. Madison’s middle name, in Hebrew, is Meital. It means dewdrop.) He kissed me. Oh boy, did he kiss me. Remember those old movie kisses, when the man would kiss the woman and her leg would bend up? Yeah, one of those kisses. Just thinking about it now makes my heart beat a bit faster and curls my toes, too.

And those arms, I felt so safe in those arms. It was getting late and we headed back to the terrace. Before returning to the reception, Andrew asked me if I’d call him if he gave me his phone number. I said, “No.” He looked so dejected. I quickly explained. “I was raised that a woman never calls a man. Yes, I know it’s 1995, but I can’t do it. But I’ll give you my phone number, and if you call, I will return a call. But I won't make the first call.” I gave him my number.

On the drive home after the reception with Kris and Lew, they pumped me for information. Not being one to kiss and tell, I let them know that I was hoping to hear from him again, and that I had given him my number. It was only then that I had found out about all the plotting and scheming that Kris and Sue had done over the years. But instead of our meeting being an awkward setup, it happened naturally. I like to think that’s why it worked out so well.

A few weeks went by before I heard from him. I had a new roommate at the time, Slutty McTramp. She answered the phone the first time he called, and as she handed me the phone, said loudly, “I’m going away for the weekend if you want to get laid.” Needless to say, I was mortified. By what she said AND by the fact that I knew he had heard. Andrew and I talked for a while. A few days later we talked some more. This went on for about two months. No dates, though. Scheduling conflicts that couldn’t be changed. Work, family obligations, upcoming holidays. And for a while after that, I didn’t hear from him. Time passed. I’d ask Sue about him, but it never worked out for us.

A few months went by and I started dating someone else. Nothing serious. More like a male friend who was there when I needed a man on my arm for something. Or if he needed a woman on his arm. A mutual escort service, without the sexy side benefits. I got an invitation to a wedding for Sunday, March 16, 1997, and so I asked him to be my escort.

One Thursday night, right after Valentine’s Day, the phone rang almost immediately after I got home from work. Damn! I planned on a quiet evening watching ER and then going to bed. But I picked up the phone and heard “Hi. I bet you have no idea who this is?” in an incredibly sexy voice. “Keep talking. You sound familiar.” As much as he kept talking, and as familiar as

he sounded, I couldn’t place his voice. “It’s me, Andrew.” And we talked. Around 2 a.m., I finally hung up the phone and fell into an uneasy sleep. The following Tuesday, I was visiting a girlfriend and her family for dinner. I told her about the phone call. She asked me if I’d called him back since. When I admitted I hadn’t, she kicked me out right there and told me to go home and call

him. Thanks, Heidi. I did as she ordered, and wouldn’t you know it, he wasn’t home. But I left a message.

The next night he called back, and once again we spent hours talking. Another night of uneasy sleep. Friday evening, three hours on the phone. I woke up in the middle of the night with terrible stomach pains. It took me a while to realize that what I was feeling were hunger pains. I hadn’t eaten since Wednesday! This was nuts. This guy was getting to me and we hadn’t had a single date yet. The following week was much like the previous one: phone calls lasting hours followed by restless sleep. I finally had enough. I told him we had to see each other. I needed to know if what I was feeling was real, or not. Due to a medical

condition, he wasn’t able to drive, so if I wanted to see him, I had to go to him. We decided that the next morning I would pack a bag and spend the day with him, then sleep over. Before I could object about his assumption that I’d be spending the night, he told me I’d sleep in his sister’s room. I got to his house, took one look at him, and realized that this was the man I’d be spending the rest of my life with. Don’t ask me how I knew; I can’t tell you. I just KNEW.

Our date was fairly innocuous. We went to the mall, hung out, talked, had some coffee, talked some more. After dinner, we went to Karaoke night. We talked over the bad singing. We went to a diner and talked some more. We talked about kids. I already knew I was in love with this guy, and I wanted to know how he felt about having children. I wasn’t going to waste one more minute on him if he wasn’t interested. So I asked him, point blank, “How do you feel about kids?”

• Andrew: Oh G-d. You’re one of them.
• Me: One of them? What does that mean?
• Andrew: You probably want to have six or seven.
• Me: No, four or five.
• Andrew: Well, how about we start with two or three and see how it goes?

I knew, then and there, when he said “we”, that this was a guy worth hanging onto. This was the man I wanted to father my children. This was the man I wanted to spend the next 50 years of my life making happy.

We finally rolled in at 5 a.m. A few hours of sleep and I had to be home. I had a “date” that afternoon for a wedding. Lou knew about my date with Andrew, and asked how it went. I told him I was officially “done dating”. I’d met the man I was going to marry, and I wasn’t wasting my time with anyone else. Beware the Ides of March. You might just fall in love.

We dated for several years. During that time, I was having some troubling periods, or lack of periods, and other nasty symptoms. I finally called my doctor, went in for testing and came out with a diagnosis of PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome.

PCOS is metabolic (endocrine) disorder, with a constellation of symptoms. Five to ten percent of women of childbearing age in this country have PCOS. Some women have more of the symptoms than others. Some have them more severely than others. But one of the more common symptoms of PCOS is infertility. Punch me in the stomach and kick me when I’m down. I was handed

a diagnosis that I would never be able to have children. I tried to end my relationship with Andrew, but he wouldn’t let me leave him. We’ll adopt. Surrogacy. We’ll figure this out ... together.

So, on a beautiful, crisp and sunny Sunday morning, October 22, 2000, Andrew and I got married. I took my final pill on our honeymoon in Asheville, NC (a place we wanted to return to someday). And we began trying to get pregnant.

Happy Anniversary, Sluggo!

You promised me 50. I only got 5. You owe me.

I love you ... Evermore.

Love, Me