The Wedding (My Love Story Part 3)

February 15th, 2011

my-love-story-3Something happened while I was engaged to Alan that infuriated me and caused me to wonder that if I married him, would I end up living on the street. I almost broke up with him. Was it worth being homeless to be married to Alan? My heart said yes, that I didn’t care, come what may, yes, yes, yes. But I was not stupid. During my engagement, the British guy told me to break up with Alan and marry him instead. I wrote a letter to the wisest woman on earth (the woman I rented a room from in college). I told her my head told me to go with the British guy, but my heart told me to go with Alan. Both men knew that I wanted 8 kids. Who could actually provide for my children?

The wisest woman on earth wrote me back and said, “My advice to you is to go with your heart.” I’ve never regretted it.

(As a parenthetical statement, the thing that infuriated me was the fact that Alan bought a used luxury car for $10,000 without paying cash. Right now, looking back, this seems reasonable. But back then I didn’t believe in going into debt to buy things. I didn’t want to start my marriage off in debt, because I knew this was one area that would always be rocky. To counteract this impending catastrophe, I saved up every penny I earned that year. I only made $14,000, and I managed to save $10,000. I rationed food and took every extra job I could, including babysitting teenagers in a rich mansion when they tried to throw a party behind my back. Anyway, instead of waiting for the wedding, Alan wanted me to wire him the money right away. I had a decision to make: would I trust Alan with my income before we were even married? It was worth more to me to have him know that I believed in him, so I wired him the money.)

I flew in ten days before the wedding, staying with my best friend Christie. I baked breads for the reception and froze them. We were on a low budget. My friend Christie decorated the reception hall. Alan had chosen a small chapel with stained-glass windows that reminded me of England. He definitely scored points there. But he had no minister. No minister?!?!? He said it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Having grown up as a missionary kid, the father of almost every friend I had was a minister. My own dad could have done it. But I didn’t want him to. I wanted him to walk me down the aisle. I asked my best friend’s dad. He refused. I wanted to scream. Finally the husband of my former piano teacher said he was willing, but that he had to interview us first. Great, I thought. I always hated the two years of piano; I used to pound on the piano with frustration. She probably remembered me as an immature teenager who shouldn’t get married, even though I was now almost 27 years old. And please don’t ask Alan if he’s ever held down a job. Gulp.

Thankfully, the minister was only interested in the spiritual side, making sure Alan was saved so that we weren’t unequally yoked. There was no premarital counseling. Nope. Just talking about Scripture, which is something Alan loved more than life, which first attracted me to his soul, with the inextricable bond of soul mates. Thank God I married him and not someone else. It wouldn’t have been fair to the other guy. I would have always wondered what it would have been like to be married to Alan.

So there I was, on a sweltering Texas day in July, with no air conditioning in the chapel. I stood outside the chapel, dripping, in a long-sleeved Victorian gown with a million pearly buttons. But I was happy. I was so happy I felt dizzy. As I walked down the aisle, I saw Alan in a tuxedo, looking mighty fine. I had wanted him for eight years. I had shed many tears for him though the years, pining away for him. And now he was mine…

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My Love Story (Part 2)

February 14th, 2011

my-love-story-2Knowing how much he was hurting, I threw caution to the wind and told him I loved him. But he was still in love with the other woman. He told me I should go out with his greasy-haired friend with zits. I said I wasn’t interested. He said, “If you love me, you’ll do this favor for me.” I knew that the greasy-haired guy would kiss Alan’s feet if he was able to get me to go out with him. That was the reason I did it. So I got a free meal. Nothing happened. The guy was so happy and nervous; I felt sorry for him.

Alan took off to join the Air Force. Since my best friend Alan was gone, I had no reason to stay in California. I packed up all my belongings into my Toyota and drove to Texas, where my best friend Christie lived. Plus, the cute jerk boyfriend (from when I was in England) was there (I still liked him), and the sweet British guy who loved me was there. So I did my student teaching, and then I taught for two years at a Christian school. I needed two years of teaching experience in order to teach in England, which is where I wanted to live the rest of my life.

The jerk boyfriend went out with someone else, so that was over. I tried to brainwash myself to love the British guy, who is now a pastor in England. I did love him, after all. We were good friends. I thought long and hard about it. I wanted to be in love with him. Besides, if I married a British guy, I could spend the rest of my life in England.

Meanwhile I was getting phone calls all the time from Alan, whose phone bill must have been through the roof, considering that he was now stationed on an Air Force base in… of all places… England! We would talk for hours about everything under the sun.

I applied to all seven American schools in England, and one of them was interested in hiring me. So I bought a plane ticket to England. Oh, but before I left, I made a chart of pros and cons, comparing Alan to the British guy (as potential husband material). I decided to pursue the British guy, mostly because I wanted to live in England. Plus, I knew he loved me and I didn’t know where Alan stood.

So I had my interview (and later got the job), and I spent the rest of the month showing Alan around my favorite places in England. I saw the British guy, and I was primping and putting on perfume and asking Alan if I looked good, because I wanted to make sure the British guy was in love with me. I was stressed out. Later on when I was alone with Alan, I felt so much more relaxed. I always felt like I was at home with Alan, like I didn’t have to do anything. I could just sit there and do nothing, and it was comfortable. He started hugging me sometimes, and holding my hand.

One night while standing on a street in England, Alan was hugging me very intensely.  I said, “I love you,” and there was silence. I was angry and called him a jerk and ran away. No, wait. He was driving, so I said, “Take me to Sally’s house.” We drove in silence. I said that either we were friends, and never touch me at all (no hugs, no holding hands), or he could be my boyfriend. One or the other. I didn’t even care. “Just make up your mind,” I said.

The next day he decided to be my boyfriend. Our first kiss was spectacular. That was it. There was no going back. After dating for a year, we got engaged. I needed to finish my two-year teaching contract in London, so we were engaged for a year while he lived in Texas. I flew in ten days before the wedding, and then we lived happily ever after.

The Wedding (My Love Story Part 3)

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My Love Story (Part 1)

February 13th, 2011

love-storyOnce upon a time, I met a guy named Alan at a college retreat from my church in California. He made no impression on me. Another guy who was going to seminary was interested in me, and we walked along the beach. Several months later, the seminary guy said he loved me and asked me to marry him. He wanted to know if I loved him, and I said that he was cute, and that I wanted to love him. I told him I didn’t know him. He seemed frustrated. Later he ended up stealing from the church and landed in jail. He was my first boyfriend. I’m not making this up.

Meanwhile, Alan was my best friend. We bummed around together, zooming around in his sports car. We would park the car at the top of a hill overlooking the city, and we would talk for hours about God. Neither one of us was attracted to the other. He was in love with some other girl. Plus, Alan couldn’t hold down a job, so he lived out of his car sometimes. This didn’t bother me because his soul was gold. I knew we would be friends for life. I loved him. I loved his soul. I wasn’t attracted though.

Then he cleaned up and put on a black button down shirt, and grew a classy, trimmed beard. I was coming back from spending Christmas with my family in Guatemala, and there he was at the airport. It was a complete surprise. A woman was there to pick me up to take me home. I rented a room from her house while I went to college. Anyway, Alan was there, too, and he looked mighty fine. Later when we got home, he accidentally touched my hand, and I was totally frieked out because there was no question in my mind that I was attracted to this man. I was so scared. This had never happened before. Either I was attracted to a guy but never loved him, or I had guy friends that I actually cared about but wasn’t attracted to.

I brainwashed myself that I wasn’t attracted and pretended like everything was normal. We continued being best friends. Then I was accepted to go overseas to England for my senior year of college. My college friends said good-bye. The girl that Alan liked ran up to my car and told me to roll down the window. She asked me point blank, “Do you love Alan?” I looked at her with cloaked jealousy and said, “Yes.” She backed up as I drove off. My heart was pounding.

The year I was in England, Alan never wrote. My feelings were hurt. We were best friends. Never had a week gone by that we hadn’t talked with each other. I knew he was going out with this girl he liked. I closed the door on that chapter of my life. I went out with an American guy who was also an exchange student. He was a jerk. I never slept with any of these people. I believe in purity.

I flew back to California, only to find out that Alan’s girlfriend had stabbed him in the back, betrayed him, and poisoned everybody’s minds against him. She tried to poison my mind too, but I said that even if everything she said about him was true, I still loved him. Even if he started murdering people, I would bake him cookies and take them to him in jail and talk to him and try to figure out what went wrong. But what she was saying was nothing close to that. He was “irresponsible” mostly. He owed people money. So what? He could go get a job and pay them back. But, no. They had all turned against him, and his life was over. Out of desperation, he decided to join the Air Force.

Alan treasured the fact that I never turned on him. And knowing how much he was hurting, I threw caution to the wind and told him I loved him.

(Stay tuned for My Love Story: Part Two…)

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Ramblings about a Funeral

February 12th, 2011

ramblings-about-a-funeral

“Am I supposed to wear a dress, and does it have to be black?” I asked my mom over the phone. I just didn’t want to offend anybody by what I wore, but I also didn’t want to be overdressed and stand out like a sore thumb. She said that not everyone wore dresses any more; as long as the clothes were a dark color, I would be fine. She said not to wear red. (Later my mother-in-law explained that to say, “I’m wearing red to your funeral” was an insult.) The older generation sometimes still expected women to wear dresses, though. That did it. I was going to wear a dress. My husband wore a suit, but with a long black T-shirt underneath instead of a button-down shirt. I started humming the Miami Vice theme song, since that was the last time I saw men wear clothes that way, back in the 80’s. But my laughing turned serious when I realized that my husband looked really good. “How come you’ve never dressed like that before? That looks good!”

“I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to a funeral,” my husband said. I think that wearing black with a suit had never occurred to him. My mom was sick with a cold, so it was my dad that knocked on the front door to watch the kids.

Arriving at the funeral home, I noticed the closed casket and was relieved. The image of her contorted body the last time I saw her is indelibly imprinted on my mind, and I would like to wash it off. Maybe the image will go away if I can manage to stop thinking about it.

Some of the family members turned around and smiled at me with huge, tearful smiles. I had only just met some of them the day she died, but apparently the hours of weeping and hugging had been so bonding that now we were good friends, especially the daughter of the deceased.

After I was seated, I stupidly realized that I hadn’t brought tissues. I leaned over to my handsome husband and whispered about my tissue-less-ness. I had also forgotten to sign the registry. My husband got up, since the service hadn’t started yet, and collected tissues and signed the registry.

One of the first things that happened was a slide show to commemorate her life. Tear-jerker music was in the background. Really? Oh my goodness! I had finally stopped crying today, after three or four days of crying off and on and being in a fog. I leaned over to my husband and whispered something about the sappy music. The slides went on for three whole songs. Some of the pictures were funny. Like she was wearing a clown wig, and all these grieving people burst out laughing. She was also painting the outside of a house, standing on a ladder with a dress on. I quietly pointed out to my husband that she was wearing a dress on a ladder. I turned to look at him, and I realized he had tears in his eyes, too. He passed me the tissues, and I had used most of them by the time the lights came back on. I was exhausted and wondered how I would get through the service.

People started going up, telling stories about the life of this woman. Some of the stories were funny, like the time she wanted to kiss a boy, and she made her brother pretend to be the minister to marry them. Everyone laughed, including the grieving husband.

We sang a couple of songs, and I heard my pastor preach the shortest sermon I’ve ever heard him preach. “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, for the living take it to heart…” the pastor quoted from Ecclesiastes, and the verse hit me like it never had before. Many people in this room did not know Christ. I closed my eyes and begged God for their souls, that they would consider death, and take it to heart. This woman had been praying for her unsaved family members for years. I know, because I was in her Bible study. I suddenly felt an increased burden to pray for them.

At the end, I hugged the grieving husband (the same gray-haired man who had previously told me how I was a good parent, changing the course of my life), and his daughter came over to me from across the room with open arms. I had given her mother her dying wish, to hear hymns as she was passing to glory. Somehow I had fulfilled this, and it meant the world to the family. I hadn’t realized that a dozen people had been intently listening to my lower-than-average singing voice, cracking occasionally because of the lump in my throat and the tears that needed to be wiped away. I knew that I was ministering to the dying woman; I just didn’t know how much I was ministering to the living family.

The daughter asked me if we were going to the reception. There’s food after a funeral? We had other things planned, like my in-laws were coming over to dinner and to watch the kids so I could go out with my husband. The daughter told me that she wanted to meet my kids. I could tell by her expression that it would mean the world to her. I said, “They’re loud.” She laughed and told me to bring them.

“Put on church clothes, fast!” I yelled to the kids as we got home. “Where are we going?” they asked. “There’s food there,” I answered as we piled in the car and drove off.

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