Like any good Canadian story, it all started at a hockey game while drinking beer. The night started with a win for the home team. Sean, one of the team's captains, was the night's hero with the game-winning goal. At least, that’s how he tells the story! As per the team's tradition, a couple of pitchers of cheap beer were to be had to celebrate the win.

Kylie, the young sister of Dan (Danimal), who was set to leave for a work contract the next day, decided to watch one more game of her brother’s team before flying out to California for the next two years. Before she knew of the ensuing festivities, Kylie found herself in the good-hearted cheer and mischief with the team and, more specifically, Sean.

What would have been an easy night of two, maybe three pitchers with the team turned into a five-plus pitcher night with a couple rounds of Executive Flying car bombs (ask the newlyweds about this delicatessen). Anyone who was there that evening and took notice of these two strangers would have noticed something special. They laughed and smiled, carrying on well into the night beyond when they expected to leave. Sean and Kylie laugh and smile frequently, we all know. What was special about this moment, however, was how they smiled and laughed with each other, which was genuine and unique.

Whether you ascribe to love-at-first-site or not, this chance meeting of two strangers at a hockey game should be a testament that such things are, in fact, possible. How do I know this? For the entirety of the two years Kylie was gone both Sean and her always wondered, in their own quiet way, where the other might be, or if they would ever meet again. The first thing Sean said to his brother, Mike, regarding this incident was, “Dude, she was an absolute smoke-show! I’ve never seen a prettier girl in my life. And she talked to me all night!” Kylie likewise would periodically ask Dan about the “hockey guy” she talked to at the last game. Dan, ever the wise brother, would only give one response about Sean: “He is gay. He looks at my ass in the locker room all the time.”

Leave it to Divinity, Destiny, or what have you to set the scene of this love story for the necessary, albeit dramatic, climax. Such was the course Kylie and Sean found themselves during the next two years. Even though we all know the strength and fortitude of these two to be well above that of the average and even above-average person, they still found themselves immersed in days of hardship. There was still a yearning in each that called for something absent in their day-to-day life. Purpose, perhaps. A mission, maybe. Even these pursuits failed to answer a deeper question they both asked at this moment in their young life.

What they would come to learn, which was both absolute and everlasting, was the answer to this question. The answer did not come in the form of well-articulated verbal answers or successfully completing some purpose, mission, or task. It did not come from countless hours of running, training, or exercising, either. The answer came in the presence of another special being. A person who could make you laugh and smile like no one else had before or ever would again. It came in the presence of someone where time passed away without notice or care well into the night. That answer was a special someone who you could not imagine another day on this earth without.

That answer was resolved on July 30, 2020…. At a hockey game!

To be continued May 11, 2024.

Written by Seans brother, Mike