I asked Him out on our first 2 dates, something that was very unlike me. I really wanted to date this guy. On the first date we drove to Ogden. My excuse--I needed a ride to a wedding reception of a friend from my youth. She was just barely 19 and I hadn't seen her since we were about 14. He had a car...no, a small ford falcon truck. We asked my roomie and her boyfriend to go with us so we all squished into the very small cab of the truck.
We went from Provo to Ogden, back then there wasn't a freeway all the way, attended the reception and then went to my Aunt and Uncle's home where we played pool. I did not know how to play so he had to put his arms around me to show me how to hold a cue. Not a bad way to spend a first date.
It was a cold, snowy night and his car dripped freezing water on my feet on the ride home, but I didn't care!
The next date was about a month later. Our girl's dorm was having a formal ball. He accepted but then went skiing the day before and broke his leg. I was sure it was just an excuse so he wouldn't have to go with me. Never mind that he would have to wear a cast he didn't need if that were true. I was broken hearted. Turned out he really did break his leg.
Eventually he asked me out on a date. And he was baptized during this time.
He used to call me and, without a word, play songs over the phone and then hang up. The first one he ever played was Both Sides Now sung by Judy Collins. There was one line that stood out to me and I was sure this was why he played it: "to say 'I love you' right outloud." I was thrilled! Now that I really know him I think he just thought it was a nice song that I would like. It seems that guys and girls are always reading into each other's actions what they long to find there.
At the beginning of our Sophomore year at BYU I was so excited to see him again I could hardly stand it. The summer had been torture without him. He wrote me letters that I didn't always understand and in which I tried to find the hidden declaration of his love for me.
When I saw him in Cannon Center I headed his way, but being very nervous, stopped and talked to others on my way to him. When I finally reached him he was disappointingly cold. How devastated I was! That was the beginning of 2 1/2 tumultuous years of dating. Turns out that my hesitation in getting over to him that day made him very nervous and suspicious. He didn't want to get hurt and so he backed off. We were on again, off again and many Friday nights I would watch him from the porch of Cannon Center while he sat at the desk in his dorm room listening to music through his head phones--which prompted me to call him and play "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" by the Beatles.
It was that same year that one of his friends saw a huge picture of a diamond ring on my wall in my dorm room and told him that he had better beware..."All this girl wants is marriage!" he was told. He backed off again.
I didn't understand why he didn't want to get married until he started telling me about his parent's marriage and his difficult family life.
The next summer was painful as he broke up with me yet again. Yet toward the end of the summer he sent me Love Story. I could never quite understand him.
He didn't return to BYU our junior year. We communicated from afar. It was one of the most difficult years of my life...to that point anyway. He came to Provo a few times and I found rides to LA when I could. It never really felt like me. It was on one of those trips that he told me we were getting married. You might recall the "proposal" from the previous post. And so this takes us the the events of the night before we were to marry in the home of his neighbor.
We had pulled in to the driveway of a house on a little street perpendicular to the LA Temple. As you recall, I was feeling the remorse of unwise choices that meant we would be getting married the next day in his neighbors home near the beach. He had turned off the engine, started to get out and asked "Are you coming?"
"No" I said. "You go ahead."
He got out of the car and went in to chant with his fellow Nichiren Sho Shu friends. I sat there a minute or two and then got out of the car. I looked at the angel Moroni brightly lit atop the temple spire and began walking toward it. It was late and dark but the gates to the grounds were still open. I walked onto the grounds and around to the front of the temple. I continued right up the steps to the door and just stood there. I began to cry. Here I was standing at the door of this majestic, beautiful edifice with it's promise of blessings eternal for all who worthily entered there. I walked up to the door and put my hand on it. I knew it couldn't be more that a few inches that separated me from the interior of the temple, yet the distance in reality was far, far greater. The choices I had made dictated that it was so.
After a time I stepped back. I did not want to leave. The spirit of that place sunk deep into my heart and soul and I longed to be there. I determined that I would be in that temple, sealed to my love by next year at this time.
As I wiped the tears from away from my eyes, I returned to the car. Shortly thereafter he joined me. We barely spoke. I didn't tell him what I felt, what I had experienced, what I had vowed. The next day we were married in his neighbor's home. As we committed ourselves to each other until we die, rather than for eternity, I quietly wept. Those watching thought it was charming that I was so touched by my wedding. They did not know that I was weeping not for joy. Do not doubt, however. I loved him.
"Apparently it is necessary for us at times to be brought to a white knuckles point of anxiety so as to recognize when rescued who our rescuer is." Neal A. Maxwell
I had no idea the path that lay ahead!
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