Losing My Soulmate, 2005, by Margo Dahlk

From MemoryArchive

Who: Margo Dahlk
What: Losing My Soulmate
When: January 2005
Where: Madison, Wisconsin

Brad William Peterson was born on April 5th. He was a 21 year old junior at UW-Madison. He was a godfather, a son, an uncle, a grandson, a cousin, a nephew, a brother, and such a wonderful friend to everyone he met.

I met Brad at a movie theater. I was with my girlfriends and he was with a bunch of his buddies. I was trying to get someone to take a picture with me in the picture booth that was there. He must have somehow overheard me because the next thing I know he's grabbing my hand and walking me to the picture booth. We went in, sat down, and he put the three dollars in the slot. And to my surprise we started talking. Now normally when you go in those picture booths you take really crazy and random pictures. But we just talked. It felt like we had known each other forever. We had so much in common. We ended up talking for a half an hour in that booth and in that half an hour I found out that he was very polite, friendly, he was very funny, open, sincere, nice, and a very genuine guy. And when our pictures developed it showed jut the two of us having a conversation.

After that we instantly became friends. And from there we started dating. Our common interest was sports. We both loved football. The Badgers were our college team and the Packers were our NFL team. I remember the night that I found out we were complete opposites. The Packers were playing the Raiders. It was the first game that Brett Favre played in after his dad died. That game was amazing. I remember going crazy and yelling and screaming every time Favre threw a long pass that had been caught for a touchdown. But Brad on the other hand just sat there. He was silent almost the entire game. I also remember that when there were challenges during the games we always had a split opinion on what happened. So we started betting on the challenges. The winner could get things from money to getting the remote for the rest of the night. Needless to say, I usually won. Football was our sport. That was something fun we both shared.

Despite having our differences, he was always there for me. He would send me flowers on really random holidays like Groundhog's Day, Grandparents Day, or Presidents Day so that the flowers would be a surprise. He said that people normally expected things on major holidays like Valentine's Day or Christmas and that took the fun out of surprising someone. He'd send me cassette tapes of songs that he wrote for me. He'd always try to make me smile. That was his number one goal, to make me happy.

This is were everything spirals downwards. Brad was at a party. Everyone was drinking except him. He decided he wanted to come see me but he needed a ride into Mt. Horeb because his car was in the shop. So he called one of his close friends. Brad didn't know that his friend had been drinking. While they were on their way to Mt. Horeb they got in an accident. I don't know how it happened but they hit a tree on the passengers side, where Brad was. I got the awful news at about 2am. I rushed to be with him. He was and still is my everything. I couldn't lose him.

Brad went in and out of critical condition. He was stable one minute and then something happened the next. I was with him the day that he died. I was laying in the bed next to him. We were watching Price Is Right, playing with each other's hands, eating pudding, and talking about everything. He looked at me and said that he was tired. I suggested that maybe he should take a little nap and he agreed. We joked around and were talking about being together forever. We were going to get married and have the best looking kids on the block, he said. He combed his fingers through my hair and told me that he was the luckiest guy to have someone so beautiful love him so much. I hugged him tight, and kissed him a million times. He told me he loved me with all of his heart. I told him I loved him so much it hurt. And the second he closed his eyes he was gone. I can still hear the gut wrenching sound of the flatline. He wouldn't wake up. No matter how many tears I cried, or how many times I told him that I loved him, he wouldn't wake up. He was gone, and he took part of my heart with him. I loved him more than I can even explain. We were meant for each other. And now he's gone forever.