March 5, 2008

Martin

I CLINKED A CHAMPAGNE GLASS to get everyone’s attention.

“I would like to say a few words,” I said, rising from the table to face Caitlin, who looked more radiant than ever before. “I’m so happy that you have met Dima. Not only do you have a wonderful new husband, but I now have another brother.”

Her face, already set in a smile, went a slight pinkish color as she raised her glass toward me and then turned to kiss the man she had just married.

“Here, here!” Wallace shouted. He was sitting across the table from me, next to Richie, our other brother from another mother. This is what we call each other still to this day.

A few weeks earlier, Caitlin had phoned me in Manhattan, where I was living and working, to say she was going to marry Dzmitry, a guy she had met on a cruise with her parents the year before. It was a quick engagement, but I knew this was a relationship that would last. Dima was different from Caitlin’s previous boyfriends. He and I shared a similar worldview, perhaps because he came from a faraway place, like me; he was from Belarus, a country in Eastern Europe. We both saw that Caitlin’s beauty was way more than skin deep. He saw her generosity and kindness and was not threatened by it. He is a good man.

Watching him exchange vows with Caitlin earlier that day, I got a bit choked up. Caitlin and I had already shared so many milestones—and still have many ahead. I did not know then that I would go on to do my MBA at Duke, or that Caitlin would finish her nursing degree, as she had planned since she was sixteen, or give birth to a beautiful baby girl. All I knew was that we both had witnessed so many of each other’s dreams come true.

This day was another in a long list of special moments I got to share with her, starting with the very first letter she had sent eleven years earlier.

I sat back down and looked around the table. Anne had happy tears streaming down her face, and Rich was so proud I thought his head would pop off. Nan and Pop were beaming, as was Grandpa Stoicsitz. Richie was there with his wife, Jenilee, as was Wallace with his, Doreen. There was so much happiness at that one table.

I only wished that my family back in Zimbabwe could be there as well.

I kept in touch with everyone back home through letters and phone calls. In fact, as soon as I was settled at Villanova, I got a job in the admissions office and told Anne that I wanted to take over sending money to my parents. She had done enough. But she insisted on sending money to them the first year so that I could focus on my studies. I began saving, and got a second part-time job at Taco Bell to earn more. That summer, I got a full-time job working for an insurance company, then continued to work and study during the following school year as well.

It took some time, but finally I was able to save enough to buy my parents a new house in Mutare. They moved out of Chisamba Singles the same year I graduated from Villanova. Knowing that my mother has a water faucet in her own home, and a bathroom with a toilet, and her very own bed brings me peace. It makes the richness of my new American life all that more enjoyable. To this day, I continue to send money home to my parents, and I made sure that my siblings stayed in school, no matter what. I kept my promise to my mother, the one I made right before I left for Victoria Falls and Villanova, that even though I was leaving her, it was only to be a better son to her and my father, and the best brother to my siblings. My dream to come to America was never for me alone.

Lois remained number one in her class and is planning to come to college in the United States. I promised her she would, just as Caitlin had promised me that I would. Soon my sisters will meet for the first time.

My family and Caitlin’s stopped being two separate families a long time ago. It started with a letter—and then all of our lives were changed forever.

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