First comes love, then comes marriage...

It was this time last week when I wrote about my dad being home alone. My mom was here visiting me for the week. I believe he won a few fans when he concluded in his comments to that post, that he was he was missing the “love of his life”. It had only been two days.

I observed that she enjoyed the same type of week I was having; a temporary single life with nobody's needs to meet but her own.

However, when she retreated to another room to talk to my dad on the phone she reminded me of a teenager. When they talked at night, the light was out and I imagined that she was twirling her hair around the tip of her finger. 

On her second night, forgetting where she was, she said she patted the side of bed for him. On his second day he was having mishaps in the kitchen. 

I asked about this picture, “Was daddy as cool as he looked?”

She replied, “He was cool but he was shy.” They crossed paths for years without talking. Mom my told me that there was a place that she knew that daddy would be standing watching for her as she changed classes. She could see him before he saw her. As excited as she would be to see him, she prepared to ignore him as if she didn’t know he was there watching.  

They finally talked when they were the only wallflowers who weren’t dancing at a house party. The rest of the story gets glossed over, but I conclude:

Mom and Dad met at a house party

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First comes love

Then comes a shot gun marriage and a baby carriage

By midweek, daddy and I discussed what time we would leave on Saturday to meet up. His suggestion was sunrise. He grudgingly agreed with a growl when I suggested, “Nine o’clock”.

On Friday night, I asked for one more day and he yelled through the phone, “NO!”

When we met at the halfway point on Saturday, I giggled. I imagined that at 61 he looked like the boy who watched for mom in the school yard. He was too cute for words, shuffling his feet with his hands in his pockets while he waited, watching for mom. 

When we pulled up, he had a look like, “There she is.” My mom sitting inside the car beside me and said, “He’s so cute." Her things were barely in the trunk of his car before he shut it and said, “BYE!”

I grew up with these two; we were kids together. They argued and I was the two year old referee who pulled their hands together. As far back as I can remember, I never thought their outcome was certain.

Here’s the thing... Mind over matter; love prevails.