We had our 1st date the end of August 1990. I left Hillcrest 2 weeks later and returned home, got my CNA license transferred to my home state and found a job working in geriatrics there, since college was out of the picture. Geriatrics... that's a fancy way of saying I worked in a nursing home, caring for poor souls that are no longer able to manage life on their own. It wasn't my dream, but the pay was decent and I credit that job for developing my strong constitution, aka being able to clean up vomit without gagging - a skill that served me well in my future career as a mom.
Our courtship went long distance. 18 hours of distance. Phone calls, old-fashioned handwritten letters [that are still packed away in our basement, occasionally I blow the dust off and read a few which make me cringe and burst into gales of laughter by turns. IMO, young people today don't know what they are missing by texting], and a couple road trips got us through the next 6 months. On special occasions, a bouquet of roses would be delivered to my workplace and all the girls I worked with would swoon. They begged to see a photo of my young man and agreed he resembled a hot movie star of that era (I've long ago forgotten who this celebrity was, I just remember them trying to impress upon me -the little Mennonite girl who didn't have TV- how big of a star he was and that I should be over-the-moon that my boyfriend resembled him.)
One of my first hurdles into the Beachy world was dating standards. You know those videos of athletes running laps on a track and jumping over those hurdles? You hold your breath with each leap, willing them to make it over each hurdle and keep their footing. What happens when they don't quite make it or trip up? Ouch, I feel their pain. I didn't quite clear the hurdle either. I'm running, running, feeling optimistic, and leap... oomph, down on top of the hurdle. Except it went more like this- the young man I was starting a relationship with broached the subject of setting our dating standard. Pretty much right out of the starting gate. It was of vital importance and all good Beachy couples must have one. Except I wasn't Beachy and I had never heard of such a thing. I wasn't about to argue, so I just agreed with everything he said. (Probably the first & last time!) I was almost -but not quite- amused at the very conservative standard he set. I had no idea. Zero, zilch, zip what a huge deal this was. Ignorance was not bliss. All probably would have been well in paradise, but someone's parents found out we set the bar one notch below total hands off. Uh, uh, no way. They weren't having it. Now I'm not knocking anyone who believes in hands off courtship. If you have convictions for it, I applaud you. Go for it. If it was a part of your story and you are convinced it's the only way to go, yay for you. But all things considered, especially our different backgrounds, it wasn't right for us. Years & years of hearing it preached as the only [godly] option and I'm still not convinced anything less than hands-off is sin. I am a firm believer in not forcing this hurdle on your children- it has to be a conviction that comes from their own heart to succeed. We can teach & direct our children in the way we would like them to go, but when they are adults we have to release them and let them make their own decisions, which aren't always what we think they should choose. If we had it to do over we would not allow ourselves to be bullied & shamed into a commitment we weren't sold on. I understand my in-laws concerns & fears. Yes, there was an awful lot at stake here, and moral purity mistakes cannot be undone. I acknowledge they meant well; they wanted better for us than they were taught, but they placed a high jump in our way that almost tore us apart.
In February 1991, R finished his VS term and returned home to resume driving truck for the family business. As I recall, he worked his last shift, had his farewell with the staff that evening, and we left afterward to drive straight through going home. His worried mother cautioned me repeatedly about keeping him awake. Ah, but we were young, energetic & invincible. Yet in the early morning hours of that long road trip, I was fading. R assured me it was okay to catch a quick nap because we needed to stop to fuel up in 30 minutes and he'd be fine that long. With complete trust, I reclined my seat and went to sleep. The next thing I knew we were tearing up the turf in the median and he was fighting to get the car under control. We came extremely close to rolling the car. Yup, he fell asleep when I did. Barreling down the grassy median with the cruise set at 60 mph [or whatever the speed limit was back then] is a feeling you never forget. Talk about being frightened into a fully alert state! When I think what could have happened. Mama mia! There is something romantic about the notion of being ushered through the gate of heaven simultaneously with the love of your life, but age 19 & 23 is a little premature for that, don't you think? Naturally, we were oozing adrenaline the rest of that trip and had no trouble staying awake. Unfortunately, I have never again been able to completely trust like that; I'm a very light sleeper when we travel and jerk awake with every little bump.
We were now only 5 hours long-distance dating. A big improvement over 18 hours. Still a lot of phone calls & letters, but more frequent weekend trips back & forth.
At my age, I shake my head that my parents let me I attempted these trips on my own as a teenager. This was pre-cell phones, too. I guess parents just trusted God more then. I did have one experience where my car overheated and died on the interstate. A trucker pulled over, looked under the hood a little and offered me & my road-tripping girlfriend a ride to the next exit. The passenger seat of his semi was full of stuff, so the only place to sit was on his bed back in the bunk. After he pulled back on the road, we found out he was driving team with another trucker, who he radioed to slow down until he catches up again. When the other trucker made a joke about 2 girls for 2 truckers, it hit me full force "what did we just do? We could disappear and no one would ever know what happened to us!" My friend & I looked at each other with panic in our eyes. I had ridden along with R on a truck often enough to have an idea when the jake brake should kick in, to slow down for that exit. The relief when I heard that sound was so thick you could slice it with a butter knife. I still believe there was a guardian angel in that bunk with us.
My parents were planning a missions trip to Haiti in April for my brother & I, and invited R to go along. If an oral surgeon ever tells you removing all 4 wisdom teeth a few days before an international trip will be no problem, don't believe him. But that's a different story... It was our first experience in a 3rd world country and my uncle made sure we got the whole variety of cultural experiences -from riding tap-tap (they sure do load those suckers down, and when it was beyond what we thought was full one driver chided us not to sit like Americans so he could get a few more in)... to being honored guests at a wedding (meaning we got to sit on benches and drink from real glasses at the reception, before someone decided that wasn't honor enough and we were invited to eat chicken & rice with the bridal party!)... sit through a week of revival meetings in Creole which we couldn't understand but it sure sounded like they would shout out "Bennie swallowed a nail!" at regular intervals (like we Americans would say "Amen")... doing laundry by hand in a basin and hanging the wet clothes on barbed wire fence to dry... touring a orchid farm and purchasing an orchid for a mere $4, and shopping in the Iron Market... eating lots of millet and something we called "ice cream with seeds" because we couldn't remember the Creole name, which was in season at the time. Li bon!
Good times! But also stressful. A little known fact of our story is that we broke up right after this trip. I had no doubts that I loved this man, but I just didn't know if I could fit into his world. The requirements & expectations placed on me to convert to Beachy-ism, especially hands off courtship, were more than I could handle. I needed a break. To think long & hard if he was worth it.
I didn't hold out very long. 2 weeks of not being able to eat or sleep, and I caved. I knew I had to do whatever it took to have this man in my life. Possibly the most sensible piece of advice my dad ever gave me was something along the line of "Don't expect him to take you right back. Your timing [of dumping him] was not nice and he doesn't owe you anything." I knew he was right and was scared spitless, but I collected a basket full of courage and made the call. You are never going to believe what happened next. [click bait. sorry, couldn't resist] This man I had been pining over was not at home sitting by the phone waiting to snatch it up on the first ring... he was off playing volleyball with his youth group! Like nothing was wrong. I was nonplussed. When he did return my call, his simple explanation was he didn't want people to know we broke up. There was no hiding the truth on my end- everyone around me knew there was trouble in paradise. But R was more merciful than I deserved and we got things patched up.
An even lesser known fact of our story is that we were engaged prior to the break-up. We got engaged early in our relationship, but we knew our parents would freak out. They needed time to get to know this person we were trying to bring into the family first, before we introduced the idea of marriage. There may or may not have been some freaking out anyway, when we did finally bring up the subject. R asked my parents for permission on the 9-month anniversary of our first date. We announced our engagement to the public a month later, in June 1991.
I think we might win some sort of prize for an unconventional proposal. Maybe if Pinterest had existed back then, R could've found some inspiration for the proposal of my dreams. I'm a romantic and wanted something special we could proudly tell our children about for years to come, but that's not quite the way it went. In romance novels & movies, men always know what to say. And it's never "I accidentally clogged the toilet again." They care about their lady's feelings and brush her hair gently out of her eyes as they listen intently, and know just when a tender embrace is in order. And then we expect our fiance/husband to do the same thing. But God love 'em, there is a good chance they grew up sharing personal space with brothers and subconsciously think the way to say "I love you" is to let one rip. It's just not in their emotional makeup to have the right response at the right time. And all the hints in the world won't score you a "real" proposal (along the lines of the one we could kinda see from our kitchen window a few weeks back. which makes the romantic in me go all heart-eyes-emoji). But I still said "yes".
On the other hand, I'm relieved Pinterest didn't exist back then. How does a bride these days wade through the myriad of options? Deciding whether to have your portrait taken in the back of a vintage truck or in a vineyard has DRAMA scrawled all over it, in my mind anyway. I grew up in a family of boys so I'm not wired to handle drama. Especially decisions involving little boys carrying a chalkboard "Here comes the bride" sign and the pressure of coming up with creative ways to ask friends to be bridesmaids. Back in the day, we simply called them up on the phone (with a cord) and said "I'm getting married. I want you to be my bridesmaid." Family & friends knew to save the date without getting a cute little card. In the 90's we lacked pomp & circumstance, we didn't even know it was an option to use Jenga pieces for a guest book. It was a simpler time.
The wedding date was set for Nov. 16. Why? Because it gave us enough time to get everything planned, made, arranged, yet was sufficient time to honeymoon before the holiday rush. Both of us were from non-hunting families. We never considered Nov 16 was opening day of gun season for whitetailed deer in my home state. A fact the male hunters on the guest list bemoaned loudly. I mean, what was I thinking? How could the union of 2 souls for all eternity possibly be more important than stomping around in the woods for the vague possibility of a loud bang resulting in the murder of Bambi's mom or dad?! Yes, I definitely see your point. My favorite free advice to engaged couples is to remember you are not just choosing a [one time] wedding date, you are picking an [annual] anniversary date. That's what we were thinking. (And since I have a son who does hunt, I kinda get the opening day thing now.) Oh, and did I mention one other small detail? R said he won't marry a teenager. I turned 20 in October, so that's really why we got married in November.
Being the romantic that I am, R found out pretty quick into the planning stage that my expectation bar was pretty high. I wanted to be whisk away to an exotic honeymoon location, and because it was November that meant somewhere tropical. Somewhere beachy. (Get it?) My suggestion of Cancun Mexico got shot down with "Cancun? Where's that? No one goes to Cancun". Except the next wedding we went to, the newlyweds got up for their infamous "My wife & I..." speech and announced they were going to Cancun for their honeymoon. YES!!!! Cancun it was, for us. (He should have known right there I would spend the rest of my life dragging [non-adventurous] him all over the globe.) Another small matter that needed negotiated was how long of a honeymoon to take. Me being from a community where 2 weeks was a minimum and 4 weeks wasn't shocking, and he being from a community where 2 weeks was the maximum. Before you ask, 2 weeks.
Taking engagement photos was an ordeal. We had a fight on the way to the studio. One of us did not want to tell the photographer we're not supposed to touch each other before the wedding -a foreign concept to said photographer. The other didn't think we should have any photos where we could be seen touching because it would result in getting "raked over the coals". Mr. Photographer noticed a stiffness between us, not typical of engaged couples, even Mennonite clients, and commented we need to loosen up, we act like we're scared of each other. Ok, where can I find a hole to crawl into? I was so embarrassed.
The surprise bridal shower was another occasion where the striking difference between our backgrounds was evident. In my community the men also attended the bridal shower; in his it was unheard of. We didn't have Pampered Chef or lingerie showers; family & friends simply bought practical gifts one needed to set up housekeeping and got together to eat cake & ice cream. So R felt slightly out-of-place at his first bridal shower but was a good sport anyway.
We didn't have bachelor or bachelorette parties because our bridal party was spread out over a couple states and it was too hard to get everyone together.
Nor did we have a rehearsal supper -something that was unheard of in my community, but considered mandatory in his.
My parents encouraged me to "go Beachy" prior to the wedding. Your wedding pictures won't even look like you if you change right after the wedding, they said. So a big, boxy covering -with strings- the wide ones, not 'fancy', skinny ones- and hair parted in the middle it was. Can we just all acknowledge right here and now that I do not look much like this now anyway?
I can't tell you how many times I had the dream that it was my wedding day and my dress was not finished. Panic!!! What to do? Uniforms! I have white uniforms for work, I can wear one of those. Horrors! You don't even want to know what all bodily fluids -that were not mine- got smeared on those dresses. They were cotton and had sweat stains under the sleeves. My wedding dress was made of the shiniest, slipperiest fabric I could find to mentally differentiate it from my uniforms.
And then the BIG DAY arrived. One of my special talents is an inability to sleep before major life events. The day arrived bright & early. 2 things I am not- bright or early. Not at the same time. I knew without a doubt that R was the man for me. But there is something about leaving behind the old & familiar and launching into the new. Even when new is exciting & shiny, full of amazing possibilities and peach & mint towels you think you want because you don't know any better yet.
The next hours were a blur of posing for somewhere in the neighborhood of 2000 pictures and smiling until our cheek muscles hurt. And listening intently to vows more because we want to say "I do" at the proper moment than because we really grasp the enormous commitment we are making. When the minister said "I now pronounce you husband & wife", he might as well have add "Fasten your seat belt, kids, you have no idea!"
We really, really wanted our ceremony to be about God. We wanted Him to be glorified, not us. He was the one who orchestrated our paths crossing. He gave me the gift of a man who loved me exactly the way I was at 20, which was significantly better than who I was at 17, but not nearly as stable as I hope I am today.
Up next- How We Did Married Life
2 comments:
So fun to read! Looking forward to more ☺
loved reading this. i like how you can write about the things that are hard to talk about or find appropriate words for. =)
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