Thank You Very Sweet

Kesner and I couldn’t get enough of each other.

Once we’d entered into a committed relationship that was heading towards marriage, we were together every day. Suddenly this other person was becoming a big part of my life and I began factoring him into my daily decisions. I no longer wondered if I would see Kesner that day, but I wondered when I would see him. And where; would we meet at my place? or his? or go out? And what would we have for dinner?  We were planning on being a unit and we began to live that out in our relationship right away.

We’d gotten serious quickly, and It was time to bring a few of my friends into the fold.

Felicia and Talithea - it was time to tell them about me and Kes...

Nobody knew what was going on; my feelings for Kesner had changed so dramatically and quickly and I hadn’t told anyone yet.   When last my friends heard, I wasn’t interested. This had been what I’d reported a year earlier after Kesner took me to his church for the first time.

It was technically our first date: 

I met him in the vestibule before the service began. I wore a pink and black floral print dress with a belted waste. We sat in the back and enjoyed the service. The preaching was clear and sound; a traditional three point sermon. And I enjoyed the music. But our interaction was awkward, I thought.

After church we went to a diner for breakfast. There, Kesner looked at me sternly and asked questions like: “where do you see yourself in five years?”

“He’s so intense!” I told my friends. “Who asks that on a first date?”

“He just kept staring at me with this deep penetrating stare… he’s strange!”

I’d said this to Talithea and Felicia after the church date…

and now I had to eat my words.

I’d judged Kesner early and I was wrong. I had to let everyone know that Kesner was not strange, he was wonderful.

They received the news in the way that good friends do, and immediately included him in our community time. We started to have “family dinners” with Talithea and her husband, Felicia and her husband and Kesner and me.

“Is this the power table of the future?”- Kesner jokingly asked the first time the six of us sat down for dinner. I wasn’t sure if it was the power table, but it definitely felt like future. We were forming a community of couples and we would try to have dinner together at least once per week.

It definitely felt like future...

Community was important to us. Beyond our friend community, Kesner and I shared visions for community in general. It was a very political time in Trenton, with local elections right around the corner. It was hard to avoid conversations about Trenton’s political and social landscape, its possibilities, and the efforts needed to address issues of crime and poverty. Kesner and I would go to our Broad Street Diner and talk about these things; we dreamed together of ways to commit our efforts to the city.

Kesner engaged in Comunity Politics

We dreamed of starting a 501(c)3; The name would be Dufresne Community Partners. “You’ll be in charge of it,” he said. That made sense to me, since he would be focusing on the family business, “Dufresne Investment Management” (Kesner had left his job at Morgan Stanley months prior to begin to get his investment management firm up and running).

We disagreed about a few things, however. We disagreed about the focus of our non profit. I wanted to continue to provide services for woman and he wanted to focus on children. We also disagreed about whether Trenton should have a casino. He thought it would be good for the city, I thought it would be bad for the residents; particularly those who had issues with gambling.

These were only small disagreements though, shared over laughter and lunch. Mostly we just enjoyed the exercise of dreaming.

Together.

During one of our family dinners Felicia pulled out her son’s baby books. This started a dinner conversation about child birth, with Felicia and Talithea giving full accounts of their experiences. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to scare me away from this experience or give me something to look forward to. But mid-conversation, Kesner looked at me and said, jokingly: “so do you want to have my Baby, Girl?”

‘Yes’ was the only answer.

…with him I could do anything.

we began dreaming about that too.

© Copyright Thank You Very Sweet, 2011