A Love Story

Seeing as February is the month of looove I wanted to share with you all the second most important love story to me: my parents. I asked my mama to write a little something. I hesitate to say what my dad's reaction would have been had I asked him he's a man of few words. So here is the purest love story that I know of on this earth. 

As the youngest child of parents who had reared eleven children, I knew there were rules, written in stone about what age a girl could go on a date.  So when I asked to go out with a boy, five months shy of my 15^th birthday, I was pretty shocked that they reluctantly allowed it.  I guess that proves that theory of easing up on the discipline of each successive child.

I had always like boys…in general.  I’d just as soon have one for a friend as a girl. Girls somehow seemed too girly.  So halfway through my sophomore year of high school, one of those “boy” friends mentioned his good friend to me, and asked if I knew him.  I did.  It was a very small school, and you at least “knew of” everyone there.

Other boys had asked me out, they were popular, nice looking athletes.  I wouldn’t call myself any of those things at the time, and to be honest, they scared me.  I knew why they would ask a girl like me on a date, and while I was flattered, I was also smart.  This particular boy was all the things I mentioned earlier, but there was a difference; a sweetness, a goodness in his boyish face.

I told our mutual friend it was okay for him to call me.  I was putting my one and only pair of cherished levis into the dryer when my pink, princess phone rang.(I had my own phone line, unheard of in 1981).

Somehow we both knew very quickly that we would likely never date anyone else.  To say things moved quickly would be conservative; class ring on the first date (My mom laughed), promise ring shortly thereafter,  and engaged before we left high school.

I had always felt completely loved and adored by my own daddy, so Ididn’t need a man’s attention or approval for that reason, but how thankful I am that God introduced us to each other at a young age.  Of course we didn’t give Him the credit until many years later.

Some may say we missed out on a lot of fun or different experiences, but I don’t guess I’ve mentioned the fact that I was basically a 30 yr. old teenager, and down-to-earth isn’t really adequate in describing how my husband’s brain works.  We never had much use for a lot of nonsense.  Oh I loved high school…LOVED it!  You would find me at every ballgame, cheering the loudest at pep rallies, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of missing a dance or prom.  I had a remarkable group of close friends that I also spent a lot of time with that I still love and see regularly today.   But I was a rule follower, and I was a Christian.

I don’t want to give the impression that I was a 15yr old country girl who couldn’t wait to get married, leave home, and have babies.  I just happened to fall in love with the perfect boy at a young age.

 

 

We graduated high school, him a year before me.  He attended a hometown college and I moved 3 hours away to attend cosmetology school.  For a year and a half, we talked on the phone once a week, no cell phones, and long distance calls were expensive.  We wrote letters, that I still have today, and only saw each other once or twice a month.

When I graduated and came home, he still had a year of college left and a part-time job at Lowe’s.  We had been dating four and a half years and we were ready to stop having to say goodbye.

Our wedding was on a beautiful sunny day in August.  It was 1985 and peach bridesmaids dresses and cummerbunds seemed a logical choice.  We honeymooned in Myrtle Beach and came home to a very small mobile home.  Our life in that 10x50 trailer was a fairy tale to me.  He was teaching school and I was doing hair.

 

 

We spent four more years with “just us” before we welcomed our first baby, a black-haired beauty .  Four years later, we had another beautiful baby girl, and then six years after that, a surprise blessing, a son.  Saying that my husband had always loved me well wouldn’t suffice, and I didn’t think I could love him anymore, until I saw how he loved our children.

 

 

I don’t know why God blessed us with such a special gift as this relationship that we have, but we have both always known it was a gift, and thirty two years ago when I got in that blue impala beside him on our first date, I somehow knew even then, that he would always be the love of my life.

 

Anyone else cry? Maybe it's just me then. Stay tuned for more love stories. Okay, maybe just mine but I'm also taking volunteers. Anybody have an awesome or not-so-awesome-but-God-made-awesome love story? P.S. mine is the latter.