Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Commemorative Speech


Nathan Corbett, My best friend
A friend is someone who never lets you tackle a giant alone. A friend knows how to make you laugh when you’re having a day so bad you can’t talk about it. A friend lets you shine. A friend loves unconditionally, forgives you for your mistakes and brags about your achievements. Today I want to praise my friend, he is a comedian, a survivor and a romantic: Nathan Ryan Corbett
Nathan was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. He was born on July 24th 1987. From diaper to diploma Nathan was cracking people up. Some kids would feel special bringing home a good grade from school to pin on the fridge or hearing the screams from the stands when they scored the winning goal, Not Nathan though. He thrives off of seeing someone smile so big their eyes water and their cheeks turn pink. The funniest thing he does is imitate famous voices. His favorite s are Bill Cosby and Shawn Connery. These voices come out during the most random times! Like when he pretends to have road rage, Bill cosby will come out. Everywhere we go Nathan is somehow making someone smile or just bust out laughing. Nathan has a light around him and its contagious. Nathan is a comedian.
When in high school Nathan fell in love with radio broadcasting. He went to community college and interned at the radio station there. On top of school and his internship, Nathan was working. It was during this busy time in his life when he was diagnosed with Crohns disease. He was in and out of the hospital due to stomach pain. He did manage to finish his AA in radio broadcasting. When he was twenty three, he had part of his small intestine removed. All the way up to the procedure Nathan had a positive attitude but once he had the surgery he started to get depressed. He moved back into his parents’ house because he was so sick and it was hard to take care of himself alone. He didn’t go on to finish his undergrad because his hospital stays were so frequent he was worried that he would fall behind in school. A combination of depression and physical pain lead Nathan to turn to alcohol. It numbed him from the stomach pain and temporarily helped him forget about how messed up his life had gotten.  I think what frustrated him the most was that his dream of radio broadcasting seemed to have fallen through  because the internship had run out when he got his AA and because of his disease he couldn’t really handle radio shifts from 5pm to 3 or 4am. One day his uncle Gary called him and offered him a job at his eye glass store. Gary was actually offering him the whole business. For six months Nathan ignored the offer and dwelled in his depression. He eventually snapped out of it when he realized that this was an opportunity to do something better for his life. He accepted and his uncle also offered his basement to stay in until he got on his feet. Gary lived in Redmond Washington so Nathan pack up his car and his moms and drove up there. Once here Nathan decided to focus on work and his relationship with God. He quit drinking and went to church (which is how he met me). He also did research on crohns and found a medicine that helps keep the flareups at bay. Nathan decided to move forward and better himself and his life. God was just waiting for him to come closer instead of standing still. Nathan is a survivor.
Lastly, Nathan is a romantic. The first time he came to church with his aunt and uncle, I was leading worship. After the worship set was over he whispered to his aunt sitting next to him that he was going to marry me. At the time I wasn’t ready to date anyone so he stayed close by volunterring to play drums for the worship team. I remember the first time I saw him at practice, everything around him went out of focus and all I could see was his smile. I think I stared at him for at least a minute straight before I realized what I was doing. Embarrassed, I looked away. My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty. I couldn’t focus on the chords that I was playing because I wanted us to meet eye contact again. I thought it was a stupid crush and I tried to ignore him. I was even mean to him a couple times. The first time I actually talked to him I told him how dirty his drum set was. My playing hard to get didn’t work however because he asked me on a date and I said yes. It was my first date, I was terrified but it was perfect. I will never forget that night; Dinner on the water front, The way he looked at me, how easily he made me laugh, walking around downtown getting lost and my black ballet flats getting soaked in the rain. A month passed and I agreed to be his girlfriend. Being nathans girlfriend was like waking up to a summer day everyday. It wasn’t just because of the flowers or the dates and love notes. It was the nerf gun wars in the house, the random hiking adventures off the path, and the thousands of times we found ourselves rolling on the floor in laughter. He pursued me, made me laugh and treated me with respect. Nathan is a romantic.
A week before this last Christmas, Nathan had been hospitalized for two days because of a bad crohns flare up. I stayed with him the whole time and doing this made me realize how much I wanted to be there for him always and take care of him. After he got out of the hospital he took me to this park in Bellevue to stargaze. He gave me this card(read this). Once I finished reading it he walked to his car and brought a giant present to me. I was laughing and I asked him what was inside and of course he wouldn’t tell me. I opened it to find another box wrapped in Santa wrapping paper. This went on for ten or twelve boxes and I started to get frustrated. Then I opened the last little box. I saw the Morgan jeweler’s box and before I could open it he stopped my hand and took the little box from me. He opened it and pulled the ring out. He got on one knee and told me how he knew he wanted to marry me from the moment he first saw me. He told me that God was working on him to make him a better man to prepare him for me, for us. He thanked me for staying with him in the hospital and he thanked me for always being there. Then, he asked me those four words that every girl dreams of hearing. In reality the space between his question and my response was thirty seconds or so but that bridge I was walking across, going from Nathan and Mercedes to Mr and Mrs Corbett was so long. It was raining out side and the raindrops were falling on his face, making his eyelashes stick together. His eyes looked so happy I thought they were going to burst. It was in this moment I looked back on the nerf gun wars, the hiking adventures , our first date and realized that Nathan is someone who never lets me tackle a giant alone. Nathan knows how to make me laugh when I have a day so bad I cant talk about it. Nathan lets me shine. Lastly, Nathan loves me unconditionally, he forgives me for any mistakes I make and he always brags about my achievements.
On that rainy Wednesday night in December I said I would marry Nathan Ryan Corbett. He is a comedian, A survivor, a romantic and most of all he is my best friend, my gift from God whom I get to spend the rest of my life with.