A Love Story - Our Beginning

Since today is Valentine's Day, I thought I would post how my husband and I met.

I was 13 years old, and it was Good Friday. My church youth group was meeting at our church, and then all going to a church member's lake house for a Good Friday service. Those of us who were already at the church were playing softball while we waited for everyone else to arrive. I was on third base, waiting to run home, and noticed a friend walking up with a strange boy I had never seen. I thought to myself that he was kinda cute, then finished the ball game.

Our mutual friend introduced everyone to his best friend from high school. It was Gilbert - my unknown-to-me-at-the-time future husband! He was 16 at the time, and a sophomore in high school. He came along with us to the Good Friday service, and we got to chat and get to know each other a bit. He started attending our church the very next Sunday, and went every Sunday after that.

For the next year or so, Gilbert followed me around like a sick puppy, obviously had a crush on me, and became one of my closest friends. He eventually asked me to a dance after a high school football game. I said yes, but I was so nervous that I made myself sick. After the football game, he had to take me home. I was young and oh, so nervous!!

I think he tried to ask me out a few times after that, but my dad wouldn't let me go. Finally, his senior year of high school, he gave up and began dating someone else. He brought her to church a few times, and I quickly realized that I was very upset at this turn of events! I kept it to myself though. At least, for a while.

Gilbert was (and is) highly intelligent, and received a Congressional appointment to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. The day before he was scheduled to leave, our youth group all went to the lake. I worked up the courage to tell him, just as we were gathering up to go home, that I really liked him much more than a friend, and I was very sad to see him leave. I forget his exact words, but the gist was along the lines of - "You're telling me this NOW?!!"

Right after he left for Colorado Springs, my parents divorced and we moved to Atlanta, GA. Gilbert and I had a long-distance telephone and letter relationship for about a year, at which point I moved back to Arkansas. He was home for the summer, and we finally went on our first real date. We went to the movies to see "Romancing the Stone." That movie has had a special place in our hearts ever since!

Gilbert went back to the Air Force Academy for another year, then decided at that point that he didn't want a military life. He came home, finished his aviation degree at the university where I was beginning a music degree. Long story short, we dated for about 6 years, and were married in 1990. The rest is, as they say, history!

And that is the story of our beginning. The beginning of our ongoing love story.