Permit Me To Put A Cheesy Title Please, Oh, Please: Language of Love

Today, we had nonprofit Clients coming to the office, so my boss decided to cook authentic Slavic-Indian dishes for lunch. I had the privilege of coming to her apartment to help in the preparations because she was running late and still needed to take a shower (it was already 11am).

I was at the dining table busy spreading ajvar on mini croissant sandwiches and slicing ham and cheese, while she waits for her meat pie and feta cheese schnitzel to cook in her kitchen (They were all very good, by the way, that I wanted the recipe but then I realized I could not cook. Fat chance.). From the table, I looked around her disorganized apartment and found clothes in her living room, Bush was live on TV defending Harriet Miers, and there were tons of family photos. Very homey.

She talked about how she learned plenty of Indian recipes and managed to fuse it with her own traditional Slavic dishes, and that because her late husband is Indian, she has embraced Indian culture like it was her own. And then she showed me her wedding photo and she pointed to her RTW white dress from Target she bought just an hour before her wedding. She pulled it off! It looked very beautiful, and so did she.

And then my curiousity asked her how she and her husband met. And I asked casually, like on a sunny day. And despite all the clutter, the noise from the TV, and all the food that needed to be prepared, she still started her story.

Every love story is a beautiful story, but this one really made me smile. Their love story became so alive when she spoke and it gave me goosebumps. The good kind.

Her husband was born very brilliant - at 16, he gets into Medical school; at 22, he's a practicing M.D.; at 32, he's a well-established professor at the Columbia Medical School in NY.

Sometime in the late 60s, Mira (my boss) was sick and needed to see a doctor. So, she was referred to him by a friend because of his reputation and expertise. The doctor's appointment went well that not only did he get to "diagnose" her, he also got her phone number!

They went out a couple of times but he came off as an arrogant jerk - I guess because he's a smartass - that Mira did not want to see him again. He was persistently calling, and Mira was just being polite most of the time. Then one day, he stopped calling. Mira was relieved. One week. Two weeks. One month.

Riiinnnggg!!!

"Dobrý deň?", Mira answered. It meant "hello" in Slav.
The man on the other line spoke very good Slav and sounded so familiar, that she could not quite make out if it was a long-distance call from a friend back home in Yugoslavia, or some crazy prank caller.

It turned out to be him. Yes, her future husband.

In the past weeks, he actually flew to Yugoslavia just to learn about the culture and learned at least 600 words, and spoke them fluently. He embraced and fell in love with Mira's culture (and with Mira, of course!) without even her asking. Without any assurances. And that's what made Mira fall for him.

Come on? Without notice, a guy flies to your home country (without you there), learns your culture,then suddenly - and freakingly- speaks your language? What kind of woman wouldn't fall for that!?

So, they married, traveled the world, conversed in fluent Slavic (sometimes English), had Indian food, had a son (you should see the combination!) and were together for 20 years before he tragically passed away.

Sigh. Look around, you never know. Love may be speaking to you already. In Slavic.