He Wasn’t Afraid of Me, and That Changed Everything

He Wasn’t Afraid of Me—and That Changed Everything

Who is that person who isn’t afraid of you?

For years—and still, to this day—people have been intimidated by me. I have absolutely no idea why. I guess it’s because I’m straightforward. I’m a get-it-done, let’s-do-it, let’s-persevere, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of person. People have described me as intimidating. I wouldn’t say I’m unapproachable, but I suppose that may be what they meant.

But he was never afraid of me.

From the moment I met him, he made me laugh. He wasn’t afraid to stop and talk to me. He was just so comfortable in his own skin, so quick with a joke, so easy to be around. And he was cute—like, distractingly cute. I still laugh thinking about it.

One of the memories we both laugh about now is from when we first met. Our paths crossed, but we were in completely different worlds there. One day, he came by to handle a building issue, and I asked if he could also take care of a falling light fixture while he was there.

He turned around, looked at me, and said, “No, I’m not your maintenance man.”

Then he giggled. He laughed so hard.

Because apparently, people thought I was this serious, hard-to-approach person. But not him. He just looked at me and asked, “You’re from Chicago, aren’t you?”

I said, “Yeah.”

And I said, “You are too, aren’t you?”

Because his humor, his confidence, the way he could talk to me so comfortably from the very beginning—it felt familiar. It felt like home. We were both Chicago, and somehow we had ended up in Arizona, finally meeting.

And that first moment mattered more than he probably knew. Because I hadn’t laughed like that in years. Not that real, giggly, teenage kind of laugh. I hadn’t done that in years—literally eighteen years.

That is who he was to me: the person who wasn’t afraid of me. The person who could make me laugh until I forgot to be serious. The person who made me feel seen, comfortable, and just a little bit giddy.

A few years back, I decided he needed to experience one of my fabulous holiday dinners. My girls and I had made a tradition of choosing a different culture’s holiday meal each season. We’ve done Italy’s La Vigilia, Ethiopia’s Genna with doro wat and injera, a German Christmas dinner with roast goose and red cabbage, and a Russian Christmas table full of Olivier salad, piroshki, and borscht.

We’ve done Poland’s Wigilia, with its twelve dishes, barszcz, mushroom dumplings, and pierogi. We’ve done a Filipino Noche Buena, with lechon, pancit, lumpia, and queso de bola. We’ve done Jamaican Christmas dinner with gungo peas and rice, sorrel, and festival. We’ve even done a Scottish Burns Night supper, complete with haggis, neeps, and tatties. We’ve explored Greek, Ukrainian, Southern, Caribbean, and soul-food holiday tables too.

We turned every meal into a little adventure. We didn’t just run to the regular grocery store. We hunted through specialty markets all over the Valley—places like Lee Lee International Supermarket in Chandler, with its aisles of Asian, African, Caribbean, European, and Middle Eastern foods; Asiana Market in Mesa for Korean and other East Asian ingredients; AZ International Marketplace and Mekong Plaza in Mesa; and Baiz Fresh Foods for Mediterranean, Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian staples.

We found Polish and Eastern European specialties at places like A to Z Polish Market and Misha’s European Food Market, and we shopped Mexican markets such as Los Altos Ranch Market and Pro’s Ranch Market for authentic ingredients. For harder-to-find meats and specialty items, we checked butcher shops and international markets around Chandler, Mesa, Phoenix, and Glendale. Sometimes we ordered things online; other times, we made thoughtful substitutions. But no matter what, we tried to keep every meal as close to the traditional version as we could.

Every shopping trip became part of the experience—finding the right spice, the right bread, the right cut of meat, or that one ingredient that made the meal feel like we had truly traveled somewhere else for the evening.

We’ve done so many that I honestly can’t remember them all—but every one was an adventure.

But this time was different.

This time, I wanted a traditional Thanksgiving meal—but not just any traditional Thanksgiving. I wanted the kind of Thanksgiving we both grew up eating in Chicago. The food that felt like home. The flavors, the dishes, and the memories that came from two people who had grown up in the same city, even though we had not known each other back then.

I invited him and his family. Of course, my mom was coming—she always comes. She is our matriarch, our beautiful soul, the heart of so many of our family gatherings. But this time, she didn’t contribute to the cooking as much as she usually does, because I was determined to be the chef for everything.

The girls and I did it together, though. They were excited—really excited—that I even had somebody.

For most of their lives, they had never seen me date, have a boyfriend, or even bring a male friend around. And that was intentional. When they were little, I had made a choice to put them first. I was raising my girls, working, building a life for us, and protecting the safe, peaceful home we had created. I did not want to bring anyone into that space or take my attention away from raising them.

Somewhere along the way, I had also quietly resigned myself to the idea that a relationship might not be meant for me. I loved my life as their mom, and I told myself I did not need anyone else. So when my girls started asking, “Mom, when are you ever going to have a boyfriend? We’ve never seen you date,” I would tell them, “I’m focused on my girls, my work, and building our life. If the right person comes along, then he comes along. But I’m not looking for anyone.”

But they would just giggle and say, “Yeah, maybe you should go out sometime.”

They were funny, sweet, and a little concerned. They had never seen me with anyone, and now here I was, inviting a man and his family into our home for Thanksgiving.

And the Chicago part made it even more special.

We had both grown up in Chicago—me on the North Side, him on the South Side. We had both found our way to Arizona around the same time, and our paths eventually crossed through a community organization. But before any of that, we had somehow traveled through many of the same neighborhoods, the same spaces, the same teenage nightclubs—the kind you could get into before you were old enough for a real club, where the music was loud and everybody just wanted to dance.

We may have passed each other in a record store. We may have been in the same crowded room, dancing to the same song, without ever knowing the other person existed. And then, years later, we ended up in Arizona, finally meeting.

It still feels wild to me. Like life had been quietly arranging the meeting long before either of us knew it.

So when I decided to make a meal that honored both of our Chicago roots—the North Side and the South Side, the food, the neighborhoods, the memories—we were not just cooking dinner. We were blending two Chicago stories that had somehow found each other in the desert.

Suddenly, it wasn’t just another dinner. It was his family and mine, sitting at one table for the first time. Two Chicago stories, two families, and two sets of memories—brought together over the kind of Thanksgiving food we both grew up loving.

I decided this would be the meal: seven courses, matching silverware and dishes, water goblets, champagne flutes—the whole beautiful setup. Nothing thrown together. Everything intentional. Because this wasn’t just about food. This was me saying, without having to say it, I want you to see who I am. I want our people to meet. I want this to matter.

I cooked for a day and a half, maybe two. Candied yams, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, turkey, ham—everything made from scratch. And then there were the roasted Brussels sprouts, because my girls loved those little cabbages. I stood back and looked at that table, and I was so proud. It was beautiful.

Because when you’re cooking for that person—the one who gives you butterflies just by smiling at you—everything has to be perfect.

Everyone at that table tried to eat those Brussels sprouts. And nobody could.

The salt tasted like we had pulled them straight out of the ocean. It was the worst.

Here I was, trying to create this warm, unforgettable first-family-dinner moment, and my Brussels sprouts were personally trying to sabotage the whole evening.

We laugh about it now. Anytime I’m cooking and the girls think something is even a little too seasoned, they’ll say, “Oh no—this is getting close to the Brussels sprouts,” and then start giggling. Because of that dinner, I measure every meal carefully now—or I leave the salt out completely and let everyone season their own plate.

But he was such a trooper. He ate every single Brussels sprout. Every one. He didn’t complain. He didn’t make a face. He just kept eating, like he was determined to prove something to me.

And maybe he was.

My mom will say, “You were trying to impress him, and he was trying to impress you. Y’all were just cute like little teenagers.” And she’s right. We were in that in-between space—friends, but with something unmistakably more underneath it. The kind of space where every text matters, every laugh lingers a little longer, and a dinner invitation suddenly feels like a very big deal.

For me, making all that food was my way of expressing love. That is my love language. I couldn’t just say, “Hey, I really like you, and I’m hoping this becomes something real.” So instead, I cooked for two days, set a beautiful table, and invited his family into mine.

It had been forever since I had felt that way about somebody. And he was that somebody.

That meal still makes all of us laugh. It really was such a beautiful evening—except for the Brussels sprouts.

So, a little advice: be careful when roasting and seasoning your Brussels sprouts. What you think is one little sprinkle of seasoning can somehow become twenty when you’re nervous, excited, and trying to impress your almost-somebody at the first big meal where your families finally meet. What should have been a pinch of Morton salt somehow became a whole pound of Morton salt!