When You Know You Know
Almost a month ago I stood at a lookout point in Edmonton’s Strathearn neighbourhood with a ring in my pocket and a drone in the sky two blocks away.
Sarena didn’t know about the drone. She didn’t know about the photographer pretending to take pictures of the scenery who wound up pretending to photograph a group of Mormon missionaries. She didn’t know that Dianna and Karen had just dropped her off under the pretense of viewing a listing at Strathearn Crescent.
What she did know — because we’d talked about it, because we’d walked into the ring store together to make sure it would fit, because we’d had the conversations that matter — was that this was coming. She knew I’d gone in with my friend (also named Chris) to learn about lab grown diamonds, the cuts, and more. She knew that we were choosing each other. That the question was really just a formality between two people who had already decided.
So when she came around the corner and saw me standing there, it wasn’t a gasp. It wasn’t a scream.
It was what are you doing here?
And then she was happy. Quietly, completely, genuinely happy.
That’s Sarena. No performance. Just real.
Our first date was at Boba and Brew. There was a song playing that night — seemingly on repeat — with lyrics that kept saying when you know you know. We laughed about it at the time. It became our thing. So when Dianna and Karen dropped her off at the park on April 30th, that was the song playing in the car.
When you know you know.
I knew.
I’m writing this from a hospital bed.
It’s Saturday May 23. In the days leading to now, my liver enzymes have been climbing - and then lowered this morning. I’m waiting on a PET scan Monday morning with a possible lymph node biopsy to follow. The medical team has been systematically ruling things out and what remains when you rule everything else out is something serious.
I don’t have a diagnosis yet. I might by the end of next week.
Sarena has spent entire days with me in the hospital. And when it’s not her, it’s someone from one of our families.
I want to tell you something about what it means to have the right person next to you when everything gets uncertain.
I’ve spent years building things. I’ve poured myself into understanding what makes people move physically, mentally, and emotionally. I’ve learned the deep emotion behind legacy and fighting for what you think is important in life.
I thought I understood love as a concept. As a value. As something I believed in.
Lying in this hospital bed I understand it differently.
Love is not what someone says when things are good. It’s who shows up when things are hard and stays — not because they have to, not because it’s convenient, but because leaving isn’t something that crosses their mind.
Sarena has shown me a level of love that some people never experience in a lifetime. And not just her. Her family. Her circle. The people she surrounds herself with — they folded me in like I’d always been there.
And it reminds me of the people I’ve collected in my fitness career. Through the clients I’ve trained, the people I’ve coached, worked out with, interviewed, helped and consulted for.
I always felt in the back of my mind that my life would include a challenge like this.
Not in a dark way. Just a quiet knowing. The kind that doesn’t announce itself — it just sits there, patient, waiting for the moment to mean something.
I used to think that voice was fear.
Tonight I think it was preparation.
I’ve watched enough people move through enough hard things to know that the ones who come out the other side aren’t the ones who weren’t afraid. They’re the ones who were afraid and kept moving anyway.
I’m scared. I’m lying in a hospital bed with a distended abdomen and a back that’s been pulling for three years and test results that are pointing somewhere serious. I’m warm in a way that doesn’t feel right and I’m tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix.
And I have never in my life felt more held.
There’s a metaphorical wall in front of me. I can see it clearly now. I don’t know exactly what it’s made of yet — I find that out next week. But I know it’s there and I know what’s required.
You lower your shoulder and you run straight through it.
Not because you’re not scared. Not because it doesn’t hurt. Not because you’re certain of the outcome.
Because the alternative is standing in front of it forever. And I have a life to get back to.
A fiancée who said what are you doing here and meant yes with her whole self.
A story that isn’t finished.
I don’t know what Monday brings. I don’t know what the next six months look like. I don’t know what version of my life is waiting on the other side of whatever this is.
But I know that when you know you know.
And I know.
True love is hard to find. Keep Inspiring us with your words and wholesome ways Chris. Endearing and precious.