Happy Post-Valentine’s Day! If you’re in need of a good love story, or in need of PBS credits, look no further than February’s blog contest.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks is one of the most widely read books on our site, with 1,426 reviews. Many Nicholas Sparks fans say it is the prolific romance author’s best and most touching work. Any one of the thousands of members who have read the book can readily explain the novel’s appeal. It’s a story about real, powerful love that endures over a lifetime, and it’s an intimate invitation to share the likable couple’s journey. A true tale of devotion like this is a welcome reminder of how wonderful life can be when you’ve given your heart to another.
Available to order on PaperBackSwap today!
Since Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, we’d like to invite you, our readers, to submit your love stories to the PBS Blog. You can tell us how you met, what made you fall head-over-heels, or what has kept the flame alive. If your anecdote involves Valentine’s Day, that’s even more fitting! Just let us in on any influential details that made your journey as a couple special and worth retelling as “your love story”.
Get your submissions in by February 25th in a comment to this post. We’ll choose the top five stories and post them on February 28th. Then, PBS members will have four days to vote for the best one. The winner will be announced on March 4th and that lucky lovebird will receive ten credits!
Please keep the stories to no more than 300 words. Though you may be madly in love, you don’t need to include every single detail about your other half! Let’s face it; if it’s that interesting, it’s probably fiction.
Now that you know the details, it’s time to start writing! If you aren’t sure how to begin, think of The Notebook to give you an idea. If you haven’t read it yet, what are you waiting for? Order it from the site as a Valentine’s day treat, sure to lift even the weariest of hearts!
Tags: Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions, contest, Contests, entries, Free Credits, Genres, holiday, Members, Romance, submissions, Valentine's Day
In June of 2003, I graduated high school. Eager to move on and spread my wings, graduation day couldn’t come fast enough. But on that day, there was someone very important missing – my grandmother. She was fading fast, succumbing to the Alzheimer’s and cancer ravaging her body. Less than two weeks later my best friend, the woman who took care of me every day from the time I was 6 weeks old, was gone. I can’t even describe the emptiness I felt. I was simply numb. I tried to throw myself into the preparations for moving on and heading to college in the fall.
My grandmother’s long illness had taken a toll on the whole family, particularly our small family farm. While my dad and I spent long hours at the nursing home with my grandmother, trying to calm her when her memories would fail her, there was hard work to be done at home. We obviously needed some help.
A good friend and co-worker of my mom’s had recently learned that her nephew’s summer job had fallen through and mentioned this to my mom. After some discussion, they offered him work on our farm to try and get things back on track.
Returning from a visit to a friend one day, I rapidly changed clothes and hit the field, where our new employee and Dad were working. (My husband will still describe my outfit – grubby tee shirt, ripped jeans, and a purple bandana in my hair.) For the next two months, we worked together – with me, of course, trying to look cute while covered in sweat and hay!
He was planning a trip out of town, and since I wouldn’t get to say goodbye before he left, I tucked a note on his windshield – “Hey! Sorry I missed you. Have a great trip!” He went home and told his mom that he thought maybe I liked him. When he returned, he called my dad. He wanted to get permission to ask me out, in case it might cost him his job! My dad told him, “She makes her own decisions, but what the hell took you so long, son?”
The next day, Luke asked me out – while shoveling poop in my barn! We went out that night, and the next. I broke a date with someone else on Day 3, just to go out with Luke again. Of those first 30 days, we were together 28. Then we both went off to college, 2 1/2 hours away from each other.
We were both told that it wouldn’t work; that we’d have to sacrifice “the college experience” to keep our relationship. But that was never the case. I joined a sorority, participated in a semester program across the country, and graduated with a double major. Luke transferred to a different college that was better for his major – and was also another 1/2 hour further away from me.
My senior year of college I started developing some medical issues. We went through 6 months of testing before I had surgery. Less than a week after surgery, Luke took me back to the restaurant where we had our first date and proposed. We married in April 2008 and planned for the beginning of a wonderful married life.
The first test of those vows came much sooner that we though however. On June 7, 2008, we were hit by the massive midwestern flooding and became homeless. We were incredibly blessed to have great friends who welcomed us into their home, and for the next 3 months, we lived with another young couple and their 9 mo. old daughter.
Since then, we’ve had many tests of those vows – both big and small. But the biggest blessing to me is knowing that I have a true partner in absolutely everything, someone who will love and support me, and was – and still is – willing to fight for me. And I can honestly say, I feel exactly the same way.
I noticed my future wife in high school English class. But never had the courage to get to know her better. Therefore I always had secret admiration and a crush on her, hoping one day to get the nerve to talk to her. She has a twin sister that I knew much better. After high school I went on to college thinking I lost my chance with her. One day my best friend and I wanted to go to a rodeo, but had no dates. I suggested we call the “twins” and see if they wanted to join us. I made the call and found out that one of twins was already engaged. So that left my future wife to ask out. I got the date and called my buddy and told him he was out of luck!. We married 1 1/2 years later and will celebrate our 38th anniversary this June. My dreams came through.
1984: I had a summer job in DC and had committed to a three bedroom sublet in Arlington. A friend of a friend was working on the Hill that summer and also need a place. Dan was a delightful housemate from the start. He was adorable, a little helpless trying to fend for himself, but in a sweet 19-year-old guy way. He was smart and funny. Sometime during the summer, we became a couple. It lasted a year and a half, but he was seriously Jewish and I was seriously Catholic and I began to see that there was just no way it could work. We parted ways, stayed friends, went to each other’s weddings.
2004. Me: single again for 10 years, tenured Associate Professor with a private practice in psychology in Atlanta. Him: a rabbi in PA. I send my usual holiday letter (late for 2003) and in Feb, get back an email saying I need to update my address book: he and his wife of 11 years have split up. I express how sorry I am, but also admit that my other response is “Dan’s single?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Then I feel horrible for my insensitivity and figure I’ll never hear from him again. Instead a slightly flirty response comes back. But I’m in Atlanta, still Catholic, with tenure, friends, a life. So we exchange dating stories. Eventually, he invites me to visit for his 40th birthday in August. The weekend is magical. By October I have told my department to advertise my job, by June I’ve converted to Judaism and moved to Philly, by September we are engaged, on New Year’s Eve we are married. We have a baby in 2007, and here we are in 2011, delighted to have reconnected and taken a chance on a long lost love!
I have to start off by saying I am so very lucky to have my fiancee. We met in 2002 when I was only 16 (he was 18). We became great friends immediately. We would spend all of our time together (we had the same circle of friends). Within two months we became Matt and Chrissy. We have been together now for 8 1/2 years. We have been through everything together. He is the love of my life. I met my soul mate at 16. I am so grateful to have him in my life. He is my best friend. Hoe lucky and fortunate am I that I found my one so early.
Almost
I almost never met him.
Sheer coincidence led to my seeking a position with his company at just the right time.
He almost wasn’t open to a relationship. He broke up with his ex a month before. She’d strung him along for two years. Finally, she ended it.
I almost didn’t write the card. It expressed my attraction and requested the chance to get to know him better. I gave it to him at work.
I was afraid. Being alone was safer. I knew how to get by. I wasn’t sure I could risk again.
I teetered on the edge of indecision for days. I can’t even say exactly what pushed me over the edge, in the direction of risk. But over I went.
He almost didn’t say yes.
He’d heard about my card in advance. Nevertheless, hurt, weary of being used, he was not sure he wanted to risk again, either.
One phrase decided him in my favor: “I admire your intelligence, your kindness and your sense of humor–and your gorgeous eyes!”
I almost didn’t write that.
On scratch paper I started with the basic facts—I wanted to ask him out and get to know him. Almost as an afterthought it occurred to me that maybe I should tell him why I found him attractive.
We hit it off as soon as we started dating. The day he called to respond to my card we talked for two hours. Eventually we talked of rings, a wedding and a honeymoon.
It’s scary sometimes to think of the “almosts” that could have kept us apart. We could have missed the chance to share this incredible happiness together.
But I tell myself it’s true, what my mother always said: “Almost doesn’t count.”
I was going to flint so that I could find a job so that I could help my mom and so that I could pay for college. well while I was getting applications my car broke down. I had no idea what was wrong with it. He pulled over in his truck and helped me out. he got my car running again and asked me to go to lunch with him. it was really nice. we talked and he took me to a store where he knew the manager and managed to help me get in. when I asked him why he helped me when he didn’t even know me he said that this way he can see me a lot more. it was two months later that he asked me out and we are still together. we also have a son that is three months old and was conceived on valentines day
I have known my husband longer than I have not known him…. We met when I was just fifteen years old and a freshman in high school. We were both on the officers’ board for our respective choirs. When one of the officer meetings ended early, my best friend and I chose to pull out our newly-written “Saved By the Bell” trivia game. No one could answer a particularly hard question… except this totally cute and funny junior. I ran up and gave him a hug because I was so thrilled he knew the answer. (Much later I found out that he leaned over to his friend after that hug and said, “She’s going to be my girlfriend next year.”) We got to know each other a little better the following fall when we were in the same choir and he asked me to be his girlfriend on New Year’s Day, 1997. We dated on-and-off for years after that even while attending different colleges (in different states). Five years to the day, New Years Eve 2002, he asked me to be his wife. We married each other, our high school sweethearts, in 2003. We have since had two beautiful boys and still keep the spark (and humor) alive in our marriage with the occasional “SBTB” trivia question!
MY SPECIAL HUSBAND JERRYP.P. DIED ON OCT 19,,2008 AND HE WAS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE..WE WAS MARRIED ALMOST 50 YEARS,,DURING HIS ILLNESS THE DRS SAID I GAVE HIM A EXTRA 6 AND A HALF YEARS..DURING THE YEARS HE WAS SICK I HAD HEART ATTACKS,,SYROKES BUT TOGETHER WE GOT THROUGH IT AS WE WORK TOGETHER AS 1 AND WE WAS 1..WE MEET ON A BLIND DATE AND IT WAS LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT..JERRY WAS A HARD WORKING MAN AND HE BELIEVE IN FAMILY FIRST ALWAYS WORKING 5 DAYS INTO 7 AND THE WEEKENDS WAS OURS TO DO THINGS AS A FAMILY OF 4..WE BROUGHT A VW CAMPER IN 66 AND WENT ALL OVER THE PLACE..CAMPING HERE AND THERE..IN 81 OUR SON ROBERT ALLEN AVERHOM GOT SICK AND DIED IN 82JERRYP.P WAS THE STRONG ONE..ALSO SAVING MY LIFE WHEN I HAD A MAJOR HEART ATTACK..THERE IS SO MUCH I CAN SAY ABOUT JERRYP.P.HIS LIFE TIMES..ALL I CAN SAY JERRYP.P.WAS LOVED SO,,SO VERY MUCH AND MISSED SO,,SO MUCH..
My husband Mark and I met through a mutual friend. At first I was not very impressed in him, but he was a gentleman, very sincere and down to earth and we became fast friends. One night I called him up and invited him out. We went to a quiet little place with a huge fireplace and talked the night away. That was in November, 1978. We started dating and fell head over heels in love with each other. On February 12, 1979 Mark proposed and I accepted. Two nights later, Valentine’s Day we went to the local jewelry store and purchased my ring. We were married on September 1, 1979 and are still happily married today, with three grown children and two grandchildren. Shortly after the birth of our third child, Mark was hospitalized and almost died. Radical surgery saved his life, but he was left with lifetime complications. I love my husband more today than ever, and our relationship is still alive and grows stronger and sweeter even after almost thirty two years. In fact, since today is February 12th, it was exactly 32 years ago today he proposed. Happy Valentine’s Day Mark, the love of m life!
I was engaged to someone else. We had been together for four years and had started to plan a wedding. That someone else didn’t like to go dancing. I met my Dave one night when I went dancing with my sister. I broke off my engagement not sure anymore of what I wanted. We would meet sometimes but just as friends who liked to dance. It was a group of us not a date. After being friends for a year I asked him out one night in May. In August, my mother was upset wih me because he asked me to move in with him. Even though I said no she kicked me out of her house where I was living. Feeling like I had nowhere else to go, I went to him. I insisted it was only temporary. Mom and I made up but I was hurt too badly and did not return to her house. In November he asked me to marry him. I said yes and we were married 4 days before Christmas that same year. Everyone said it wouldn’t last, it was a mistake, we didn’t know each other well enough. Two children later, we will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary this year. He is my best friend, my partner in life and I am so grateful that he liked to dance.
I met the love of my life when he was born on July 7, 2005. He is my grandson and is the love of my life. My kids were pretty special and I love them very much, but Benjamin just takes the cake. To top it off, he thinks his Nana, me, is hilarious! I will love him to the ends of the Earth!
There we were – two hearts that had been trampled by love – still hurting and nursing our wounds. I lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba (look it up) and he in Seattle, where the sun never shines… at least it seemed that way. One day, in the course of business, I wrote to him, as he was coming to Winnipeg to do some work for the company I worked for. He, living as single men everywhere do, like a bear with furniture (thank you, Rita Rudner), placed the letter on top of a stack of unanswered mail on the floor – third row down, fifth column over.
That afternoon, a stray ray of sunshine broke through the clouds and shone on the single sheet of paper. It seemed to glow with promise. A year later, allmost to the day, we were married.
What my mother always told me rang to be true.. True love will come when you least expect it. In 2005 I was trying to become my own independent woman at the age of 29. A bit behind to say the least. I was in the process of recovering from several abusive relationships. After nearly getting killed in one of those relationships, I fought to build strength in my life, by becoming a domestic violence advocate, immersing myself in womans groups and focusing on building a new career.
I thought it can’t get any worse than what I have been through so keep pushing forward. At that time I entered another relationship hesitantly with a man I had been friends with for years. I thought because I knew him, it would all be okay. Alas he broke my heart and I found out that he cheated one me by the fact that I contracted the Herpes virus. After all the last few years had brought, the final blow of all blows… How could I ever find true love, have all my dreams of someday having a family and someone to share my time with & build happy memories with. It seemed to me that I just was not meant for anything good and although there is a “gift” in life through every experience, I certainly could not see it at that time.
So I secluded myself, how could I date anyone and tell them I had an std, that would never go away. Who would want me & who would want to deal with that. Your world can cave in pretty quickly and when you least expect it.
During all of these overwhelming emotions and hurdles, I forgot all about the ad I had posted on match.com. Not because I expected to actually find true love, but because why not, what did I have to lose anymore…
I didn’t post a picture, I didn’t want to be judged for looks, as I was atractive.. I didn’t say I had an std.. I mean how could I be so bold & who would ever respond.. so i just forgot about it.
Sometime later I got a response (there had been lots I just ignored) from someone near by. He was cute and seemed laid back. He wanted to meet. Could I actually try to get to know someone again and let them know my secrets and date? But by that point I almost didn’t care, I was partly numb, had no expectations. All I knew was what I would be looking for and what I would not settle for again. I’d pay attention to any red flags this time.
So it began me and Jason started to talk on the phone, I wanted to know everything about him and he willingly answered. Gave me the good along with the bad. And he respected me and let me share what i was comfortable with sharing. The time came that we planned to meet and have a date.
That night I ended up in the ER, with multiple kidney stones.. laying on a bed drugged up, feeling like I was dying and saying to myself .. well the universe clearly doesn’t want me to meet this guy!!
And while he called me on my cell and asked what time we should meet, and found out my situation of the moment, he actually wanted to know if I wanted him to come to the hospital for me… Are you serious!! Meet me like this… I don’t think so. Then he said well if you need help when you get home and you want me around just give me a call. And with that if you have ever had kidney stones, that would be the last thing you are thinking of…
Over the time and days though he still kept in touch, same time everyday, showing his reliability. He grew up one town away from me in Massachusetts, if I hadn’t moved would we have ever met there? What were the chances.. Yet here thousands of miles away we are brought together and he doesn’t scare easily.. BUT would he scare when I needed to share the darkest and humiliating secrets of my life? NO, instead he hugged me, told me it didn’t matter, and he was here for me..
Could I have finally met a genuine good man.. was he the gift, within all my pain? So I took it slow, slower than I ever had before, I was scared, I was hurt, I was vulnerable but portraying a fake strong front. And so our dating and friendship slowly evolved. Friendship and attraction slowly turned into love .. Of course my happy ending couldn’t be that simple … we went through many ups and downs. And due to my vulnerability I tried to toss him away several times. But he stood strong, he was a good guy.
5 1/2 years later we are engaged (for 3 years now!) I’m taking that slow too. We plan to be married with in the next year and try to start a family. WE live together with our furry babies, and tackle our daily obstacles of life together. I know he is there for me no questions asked.
So true love does exist, it may not be simple, but I found out it isn’t supposed to be. Because without going through all those terrible experiences.. how else could I truely appreciate the good ones.
So if you find yourself questioning love, and life just doesn’t seem to be what you wanted or expected. Know that when you may be looking (but not really looking) that the universe, god, whom ever it may be, will present you with a gift. When it’s time you will be fulfilled.
Thank you for reading a part of my story ~ Heather S.
I met my husband when he was a paramedic and I was a police officer. My partner and I were getting ready to chase down a subject wanted on a warrant. I was getting read to jump out of the squad to give chase when my partner overshot the suspect (we were in an alley driving parallel to him so he would’t see us out front). My partner pulled into the “T” part of the alley, then started to back down the alley. He suddenly hit another squad car! I struck my head against the window. The paramedics who answered the medical call for help included my future husband, Dennis. Dennis proceeded to strap me to a back board (unnecessary), and then ruin the only pair of uniform pants that fit me (which I had had altered at my expense) by cutting them. I was furious with him at the time, but he later told me it was his way of getting my attention! We’ve been married for 22 years now, and he still has the ability to put me into cardiac arrest! Luckily he still knows his paramedic stuff!
The year was 1967, and we had moved for the 3rd time in 1 year to another small West Texas town. A new school and just when boys were becoming very interesting. Making new friends again! Well, I finally got asked for a date to a Valentine Dance…..but I wasn’t overly interested in the guy that asked me out…so about halfway through the dance I introduced him to a girl that DID like him and begged off with a headache…saying that a friend would give me a ride home. Well, that girlfriend took me by the burger joint and there I met a guy I really thought I could like(he treated me with so much respect and caring)…we started dating and were so in love….but we were still so young and had so many wild oats to sow. A tiff broke us up and we went on to marry others, not seeing each other for 30 more years though his sisters would tell me over the years where he was and what was happening in his life so I knew when he lost his wife to a brain aneurysm. As my 2nd marriage of 23 years was on its way to ending, I often thought of my first love and how I wished he would knock on my door and sweep me away from all the pain and hurt I was experiencing but it didn’t happen then. I went through a pretty awful time and saw a counselor for a few months and shortly after he told me to go conquer the world, I could handle anything…..I ran into the son of one of the guys in our high school crowd and we started talking about all the people we knew in common and I asked about my first love. It just so happened that fate must have stepped in then because a few months earlier, he had moved to town and was a widower. The friend’s son took me by his house to say hello BUT he was on a date, so I just left him a short note that if he would like to renew an old acquaintance to come by my apartment sometime….a few days later (almost 30 years to the day) there was a knock at the door and when I opened it….there he stood and the first words out of his mouth were….I guess you know you broke my heart 30 years ago! We started dating, dated a year and then he popped the big question…I said yes and this year we will celebrate our 14th anniversary….I still pinch myself sometimes because it just doesn’t seem real. Sometimes that first love is the real love but it’s just the timing that is wrong!!
Three days…that’s all it took and I was head over heels in love with him. What sheer delight to find he already loved me, had been waiting for me…
We were both widowed. I stopped by his house to pray with him before he had bypass surgery. Time flew and before I knew it, I had been there for hours, both laughing and crying!
Surgery went well, and we whiled away his days in the hospital holding hands and stealing kisses. Other well-wishers came and went and looked at us quizzically as I outstayed all their visits. After three days and many hours of conversation sprinkled with much laughter, he confessed that he believed I was the answer to his prayer. When his hospital stay was through, I followed him home with supper for him and his son who had come to help out for a few days. His son didn’t know what to make of us either. One evening we were chatting and he mentioned his intention was to look for a rich woman to take care of his father. I quipped, “Do you want to call my accountant?”
A few days later, as I looked in his sparkling blue eyes, he asked me to marry him. Five weeks later on his 75th birthday I did. Though he was much older, ours was the love of a young couple, romantic and passionate. We spent our wedding night on a hospital bed, cuddling close and holding each other tenderly. Our time together was cut short, and 18 months after we married, I was again widowed. I kissed him for the last time, my tears falling unashamedly. Our life together was brief, but our love was more real and true than any I have known.
My Valentine story isn’t about my “Significant Other”, but about meeting my Best friend (since Im only 17!). If your a Equine lover, then you’ll understand what Im talking about. I met my soon to be best friend on February 4th 2009, when i was looking for a new horse to start the exciting sport of barrel racing with. She was a Big Brown and White American Paint Horse, Her name was Sadie. We seemed to instantly have some kind of bond to each other, and that’s when it all started. Three days later I brought her home. She was head strong, had her own rules to everything, and did things when she wanted to do them. After about a month and a half we started barrel racing together, it was slow going, as we were learning each other, we hardly ever placed in any of our classes. We never let that get us down, and she always seemed to brighton up my day when we had a hard time. We progressively started getting better and better by July 2009. Slowly we started moving up from last place in most of our classes too actually placing, it may not have been first place but we had moved up, and that excited me. In fall of 09 our Equestrian Team made it to State Finals, it didn’t go to well, with Sadie and i Nocking over a barrel in each of our runs, but we got past it.
2010 was definitely our Year, We moved up from placing last in most classes, to Placing in the top five. In spring of 2010 we got our first, first place in barrel racing, I was absolutely ecstatic and Im sure Sadie was just as excited as I. She definitely deserved it, We both did. That year was Amazing, we made so many accomplishments together, including making it to our State finals. It was a great year together. I hope 2011 is just as great!
Sadie and i have a bond, a Friendship that i just can’t explain. She’s my best friend, She’s there to brighton my day. Her mane is there to wipe away my tears. I get to experience the moments that no one else does with her, She has a side that only i get to see. She’s my best friend, And i always know she will be here for me. We have now been with each other for 2 years.
Thank you for reading my Valentines Day story, of my Best friend. She means the absolute world to me, and i would do anything for her.
-Hollierae
When I got divorced, I sat down and wrote out a list of what I wanted in a man. Humor, love, confidence, Secure in himself, good job, family oriented, all the things that are important to a woman. In 1992 while eating lunch at work, I looked up and saw my future husband. He was the most handsome and gentle man. Raised by parents that believed in old fashioned ways, he was just what I wanted. We started dating and blending our family, his daughter, my son and daughter. We married in 1994 and have been together for the last 17 years. He is my soul mate. Our marriage is a partnership for everything. We cook dinner together, do household chores together, work outside together and we love each other more every day. My heart fills with love for him always as I know his fills with love for me. I look forward to the rest of my life with him. When he is 90 years old and sitting in a rocking chair, drooling, I will be there to wipe his chin.
Some say its love’s providence that brings two people together. Others say it is by mere coincidence that two people find each other amidst the mass of thousands of people they will meet in their lifetime. My experience has taught me that you can choose to be the master of your love’s destiny and you may or may not be successful, or you can allow, through patience, for the providence of love to find you. My sweetheart and I met while I was in high school and he was in college. We dated for a year, but as circumstances would have it, I was shipped off to college 3,000 miles away. Needless to say, our romance trickled down to nothing. Distance doesn’t always make the heart grow fonder! However, the affinity we shared for each other would miraculously find its way back to the surface and we would get back in touch with each other after a four year absence. It was almost as though the effort I was putting in to make a life for myself on the east coast was nothing compared to the providence of God to join me and my husband together. At one point, I asked myself if it was possible to be in love with two people. I now realize, you can love several people, but you only fall IN LOVE with only one person! I thought I’d never move back to California, but God had a different plan. I was told, I would not have children, but God had a different plan. I though I was already committed to someone else, but that wasn’t the someone for me and God knew it. Then, After six years, I came for a visit back to California and I never left! I found the true someone for me, love’s providence, better yet, God’s providence! We had a fiery romance that flowed right through to a gorgeous beach wedding, 2 beautiful children within our second year of marriage and several years of marital bliss. Yes, w are still madly in love, I say, IN LOVE, after 15 years of marriage. Oh, and yes, we’ve had our struggles, our hardest being the death of our third child. This just brought us even closer together. We were then blessed with our fourth child, so again, I would say, God’s providence. I pray that everyone can feel the true love that is only heaven sent. Happy Valentine’s Day to you all and may your love be heaven sent!
OK, so my story is not conventional or really even one of those that you go “awwww” when you hear. Rather it tends to make you laugh. (Some names changed to protect the innocent) LOL … I was a 30 year old single mother of a 4 year old. I had my career, my friends and every other weekend to have fun. LOL My 2 best girlfriends would come over and we would start at 5:00 pm every other Saturday with dinner and usually 2 bottles of wine. Then we’d take showers and primp then dress to kill. Usually around 10 pm we’d finally leave the house to go out dancing. We all loved to dance and we were with “our girls” (each other) and just had a blast. Well, one Saturday “Megan” got a little more tipsy than usual…. ok ok she was drunk as a skunk and decided that she wanted to bring “Chris” home. Chris was a 23 year old hottie that had dance moves like you wouldn’t believe. To put it bluntly Chris said, “Umm, no thanks.” Both my GF’s said, “he won’t come home because he likes you.” I, of course, looked at them like they were idiots and moved on. Well, weeks later I guess it was my turn to become overly inebriated and laid a big ole’ smooch on Chris in the middle of the dance floor. After I woke up the next day I was also reminded that I asked him to come home and then preceded to call his phone to leave a message of a chicken clucking. Needless to say once I was sober I called him to apologize profusely and he asked me out on a date. My response was, “what in the hell does a 23 YO want with a 30 YO single mother?” His response was, “Anything and everything. I didn’t go home with you because I wanted more than what that offered” So, after I melted I said yes. Five months later he proposed to me with the aid of my son on bended knee when hurricane Isabel was coming through. The rest is history…..and I’m lovin every minute with my husband that is 7 years younger than me. 😉
Matt didn’t want his newfound girlfriend to think poorly of him for taking me out, his friend of two years. Hence, he invited her along to the movies with us. He didn’t know I had fallen in love with him, realizing no other guy compared to his maturity, determination, and love for God and family. I felt nauseous accompanying him on a date with his girlfriend, but I chose not to share my feelings. I believed God wanted me to wait for Matt’s feelings to change.
Waiting outside the theater was Hippie Girl, embodying free love, hemp garb, and flip flops — not the typical Christian girl Matt usually dated. As Matt raced to kiss her my heart sank. I quickly learned the ugly basis of the term “third-wheel.” During the show she and I were perfectly aligned on either side of Matt, the ideal angle for me to witness him caressing her hand. Each glimpse of romantic expression between the two was unbearable.
I bolted as the film concluded narrowly breathing an audible goodbye to Matt. I desperately wanted to avoid the after show of PDA. I returned home in agony. “Just let me cry one tear, and I’ll stop loving him,” I pleaded with God. Not one tear flowed from my eyes that night. Somehow, beneath all my despair, God gave me peace.
Over a year later, Matt and I sat alone in his apartment on Valentine’s Day 2001, both unattached. He had taken me out to eat as was our “just friends” ritual, but tonight was different. Our laughing and joking had turned into him holding me and asking, “Does this feel as right to you as it does to me?” Three years and several girlfriends of waiting was worth that moment, the beginning of our togetherness.
I met my husband Greg when I was working at a youth camp—he led the staff training and orientation. The first summer I knew him, we spent a lot of time together, just talking. I couldn’t believe how well he understood me… it was like he could read my mind. We often finished each other’s sentences and said things at the same time. But he was older than me and I was a college student; I didn’t see him “that way”, but I was drawn to him anytime I needed to talk or process.
My senior year of college landed between my two summers at camp, and I would frequently ask Greg for reference letters. Though he was never overt, I had the sense from our emails that he was interested in me; I was shocked. Determined to avoid him, I decided not to go back to camp that summer.
But fate stepped in when my plans fell through and working at camp or staying home were my only options. I went to camp… but gave myself strict orders not to give Greg any false hope. He didn’t show up at training for several days and I found myself constantly wondering… where WAS he???? When he finally walked through the dining hall door, I flew to him without thinking and hugged him, long and hard.
After a summer full of knees touching under the table and finding endless excuses to be in the same place at the same time, he drove me to the airport. We had tears in our eyes when we said goodbye… and I walked into my house three hours later to an email. Subject line: “It took me 2 hours to find my car in the airport parking lot.” And we’ve been together ever since.
I am living a real love story. Janet and I have been married for a bit over 11 years, the second for both of us. We had been coworkers several years before the romance began. I had moved to another State but we continued to run into each other at conferences and conventions as we were both in the same business. She got unmarried/he left and I got unmarried/she left and soon thereafter Janet and I began to “date”. Though we lived eight hours drive apart the visits became more and more frequent. On Valentine’s Day in 1999 at a conference where we were in attendance I secretly made arrangements to have five minutes to speak at a dinner of our colleagues. I proposed to Janet in front of our 700 of our friends. With apologies to poet Robert Browning I ended my brief proposal with,”Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be” Janet, will you marry me? We were married on January 1, 2000 (Y2K Day) and are as much in love as ever.
Well, my husband and I met 47 years ago in 1964. We dated for 2 years and then married. We had six wonderful children and then after 35 years we started having trouble….he blamed it on my “change” and I thought he was going through a “change”. Whichever it was, we divorced after 35 years. We would see each other occasionally over the years due to events of our children. Then in 2007, my x husband had heart surgury, triple bypass and a valve replacement. I was there at the hospital with him everyday. You see, I never stopped loving him. When it was time to go home, he asked if he could come to my house. Of course I agreed. To make a long story short. We were married again this last December of 2010. This year (July), we will be celebrating out 45th Anniversary of our original wedding. I guess our love never died. We’ll be together forever now.
My husband and I met in 2000. He was a musician and he played in a band with my piano teacher. I went to see the band play and thought the guitar player was very handsome but I thought he looked tortured in some way. At my piano lesson the next week, my teacher told me his guitar player thought I was cute and wanted to take me out. I was seeing someone else at the time so I declined but he stayed on my mind. A couple of weeks later, the band was playing again. I took my then boyfriend with me to see them (tacky I know). I just really wanted to see that guitar player again. At my next lesson I gave my teacher my phone number. Joe called and we got together. We really were having a great time together, until I found out he was engaged to someone else but miserable in that relationship. I told him I couldn’t see him anymore. He came back to me about a week later and told me he got his ring back. We’ve been together ever since. There have been highs and lows – I was in the process of adopting a little girl when I met Joe and he decided to hang on for the ride. In 2002, I went to China to bring my beautiful daughter home. Joe brought me to the airport and was there to greet us when we came home. All was going great, then in 2003 Joe had a major stroke. He was close to death, unable to walk, talk, eat or move his right side. After a very long year of surgeries and rehab, Joe was able to move back with me. In 2005 we got married with our little girl walking down the aisle with us. Joe has some residual from his stroke – he cannot play guitar or sing anymore – but to me he’ll always be the sexy guitar player I loved from the first time I saw him!
When people ask how we met, I laugh and tell them I was streetwalking. My girlfriend and I used to walk around the block during the summer eating the snowcones we bought at the local snowcone stand. A friend I knew lived on the corner and he introduced me to my future husband. When I kissed him I got butterflies and I knew he was the one. My parents were real upset when I told them I was getting married because we had only known each other nine months. We wanted to get married on Valentine’s Day but our church was booked that day. So we got married on March 1, and this year it will be 31 years together. He was 18 and I was 20. We have two wonderful children and two heavenly grand children and he has nursed me through a bout of cancer but our love grows stronger every day. He and my children and grand children are my whole life.
My husband and I met in first grade. Our teacher assigned us seats next to each other and soon Josh became my first sweetheart. But, as childhood crushes go, Josh and I didn’t have another class together for years and we grew apart. However, in high school we were both assigned the same 9th grade Health/P.E. Class. We’re both shy, so I told one of my friends that I had a crush on Josh and she told him for me. We started dating but, sadly, our high school romance was not to last. At the time, we both lacked maturity and went our separate ways. We were a lot like Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Unfortunately, we would not speak or have another class together for the rest of high school. Years passed. I stayed in our small hometown, while Josh went off to college. Eventually, I got a Facebook account. I recall seeing Josh’s account, but I told myself that he’d never talk to me again, much less be my friend on Facebook. But a few days later, I got an email saying that Josh wanted to be my Facebook friend. I took a chance and wrote “hi” back to him. We started writing to each other and, eventually, he wanted to call me. The phone rang, I picked it up and as I was saying hello, I was trying to sit down at the same time and my computer chair nearly rolled away from me. I guess you’d say I fell for him all over again. After that initial embarrassing moment, we spent hours on the phone together making up for lost time. We agreed to go out together the day after Christmas.
Two years later, we were married December 2010.
I was in college fresh out of a relationship and not looking for another when I met my future husband Dan. He was only planning to stay in the New Jersey area for the year before moving back home to Ohio and he wasn’t looking either.
I went out dancing with my friends, he was playing in the band we danced to. When our eyes met, I felt time slowed and stopped and even reeled backward. It was a true romantic tale moment where I swear I could see his face through time, dressed in different ways as if I was seeing someone I knew forever.
We were introduced and we talked for hours. But we weren’t looking. It was the wrong time for both of us.
Weeks went by without any contact and then my room mates hosted a party and secretly invited him. When we met again, we stood in the kitchen of my apartment for most of the night. People walked around us, talked near us but mostly left us alone in a party of dozens of people. Afterward, people told me it looked like a glow surrounded us and no one could bear to disturb us.
Easter time, I took him home to meet my family. My middle brother had a strange look on his face all evening. I asked his wife what the heck was wrong with him and she told me that he had had the strangest feeling that Dan and I had been together always.
But neither one of us were looking for a serious relationship. I had college and he had Ohio. I was going to end it. We had never said the L word even though we both felt it.
Then one night I was driving him to meet up with his band members, it started to snow, then blizzard. A party bus cut me off and we crashed. I was completely uninjured and as I turned to him to tell him how lucky we were, I saw blood covering his face and I realized he was really injured. I cried and begged him to tell me he was okay. He grabbed me and told me that no one had ever cared for him the way I did and he loved me and always would.
He was brought to the hospital, stitched up and friends brought us to another friend’s house. When we awoke the next morning, we found out the Space Shuttle Challenger had exploded.
That was 25 years ago and we have been married for 22 of those years.
He says:
You were wearing Army field trousers, combat boots, and a tank under a flannel shirt. Your hair was in braids. You’d been roto-tilling and were covered in dirt, head-to-toe. Your smile stopped me in my tracks. I thought, “There’s a girl that doesn’t mind getting dirty–wish she could put up with me.”
She says:
I thought he was pretty cute, but he didn’t get the message. After two or three months, I finally had to kiss him for him to realize. I thought we’d have a fling, nothing serious. I was a year out of a marriage gone bi-polar and had three kids to raise. I hadn’t dated since.
One day we took my 8-year-old up to visit his mother. My daughter was over the moon, laughing, chattering–just plain happy. All of her life she had wished for a grandmother, and now we were going up to see ‘Gramma Norma,’ whom she had met, to their mutual adoration. We were hauling a boat trailer behind us when, suddenly, we heard a loud bang. The Blazer rocked. We pulled over across three lanes of interstate.
He got out of the vehicle, slamming the door behind him. We were silent, wide-eyed. We heard him yell an expletive. We looked at each other with tear-filled eyes. We knew our wonderful day was a thing of the past. For the next few hours, ours lives were going to be a living hell. I wondered how many hours until it’d be over.
He opened the door and said easily, “Mollie baby, do you want to help me change a tire?”
She looked at me with those wide eyes, her excitement beginning to return. I nodded, unable to speak. While they changed the tire, I wept at the realization that my view of ‘normal’ was badly askew. I fell in love that day, deeply and irrevocably, while sitting in that car on the side of the highway.
We’ve been together twenty years this month. I love him more now than I’ve ever loved anyone. His touch moves me, excites me even more now than ever, more than anyone has. I love his kisses. Best of all? We laugh together, we touch each other, we miss one another when the other is gone. We love.
My husband and I lived down the street from each other when we were young. Although we attended the same grade school we never played together as he was almost three years older. His mother was best friends with my girlfriend’s mother so I heard all about him…and then I moved out of the area for several years. My girlfriend kept in touch by letter which is how I found out when his mother passed away suddenly. I felt so sorry for him. Eventually I moved back and within a few years after our return my father died a sudden and tragic death. I was a teenager by this time and began dating. Nothing was really working out for me and I was desperately unhappy without my Dad. A good friend of mine began dating a guy from the next town over who threw a New years party in his basement. At loose ends with no one special to spend time with, and nothing else to do, I went to the party. He was playing pool at one end of the basement rec room and I drifted over to watch. I still remember the way our eyes met and the intense feeling of connection we experienced that night. He drove me home and we sat and talked for hours, sharing our stories and talking about the huge losses we’d experienced when we lost our parents. We were seventeen and nineteen and from that night until now, thirty eight years later, we’ve been inseparable. His love brought comfort and healing into the painful void the loss of my Dad had left in my life. Together we created a close and loving family that includes five children and nine grandchildren. They are the crowning achievement of our life, the legacy of the love we found together so many years ago.
My husband and I met each other in high school. But upon further discussion, we realized we actually knew each other in elementary school, yet not at the same school. My husband (Adam) visited a neighborhood friend of mine John periodically. In fact, Adam’s mom allowed him to bring his bike when visiting John so they could explore the neigborhood… MY neighborhood. These two boys would go around the “hood” calling all the girls they saw, “buttholes!” Oh my gosh! What a horrible thing to say! My dear friend Nancy and I were appalled!
In the same breath, my very dear neighbor friend, Nancy, and I played together incessantly. Then, when her birthday came around, her mom allowed her to invite 2 friends for the slumber party. She invited me, of course, and a girl I didn’t know named Heidi. Well, Heidi, made some serious moves on my dear friend Nancy, trying to maker her HER friend. During a game of hide-n-seek, where the seeker hid her head in her sleeping bag while she counted to 20, I gave that Heidi a punch of a lifetime… how dare her move in on MY friend.
Fast forward 10 years later at Adam’s family dinner table. Picture me… quiet, prude-ish girl of 17 eating dinner at her boyfriend’s home w/ his mom, dad, and younger sister Heidi. Hey! Guess what! We know John from your neighborhood! Yeah! That was me, Adam, riding my bike around the neighborhood calling all the girls awful names! Oh! And a neighbor friend, Nancy? Yes, she was Heidi’s dear friend until someone bashed the side of her head in during a birthday slumber party. What?! That was YOU! Hmmm…
And the rest is history! My husband will NEVER call me “butthole” again (ha!) and my sister-in-law will never let it rest that I slugged her a good one during hide-n-seek at Nancy’s house. Ahhh… the in-laws! (Don’t we all want to slug that at one time or another?!)
Honestly, true story!
My husband and I both went to the same high school, and were in the same year there, so we knew each other at least a little bit.
He was a goof ball all the time. We had a couple classes together, and we sometimes happened to eat lunch at the same table. In our “acting” class at school, he would constantly be trying to joke around with me (which I thought was super annoying, ha ha,) and would go as far as to lay across the stage in front of me. I tell ya. Anyways, even though he was always flirty, I never even considered him because he had a girlfriend through junior year, and I had a crush on one of my guy friends.
A couple years passed. I was in college, (and he was in the Marine Corps stationed in Washinton state,) and I began using Facebook. One day I got an invite for an application called “Are U Interested” from him. I didn’t think much of it because I figured it was one of those things where you need to invite people in order to use it. Well, a couple days later, I got a notification saying that he clicked ‘yes’ on me. …What?!?! So I sent him a message asking him about it, and he just plain out said that he likes me. I guess I was in denial all through high school, because it still came as a shock to me.
We started casually talking on AIM the next couple months, and I eventually worked up the courage to call him. So after that we talked on the phone almost daily. That all started in October 2007. In June 2008, he finally was able to come visit me in Minnesota! We instantly hit it off and became officially a couple.
He was only able to stay for a couple weeks, but we fell in love pretty fast. The next time I saw him was the following November when I went to see him in Washington for the Marine Corps birthday ball. After that, we made a lot of effort to see each other at least for a week every month. On Christmas 2008 he gave me a promise ring. And in March 2009 he proposed! Most people thought we were crazy and didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.
We got married August 15th, 2009. I moved out to southern California to be with him when he got stationed in Camp Pendleton. It was hard not seeing my family and friends all the time, but it was totally worth it because we know we are going to be together forever (as cliche as that may sound.)
We are still happily married… living back in Minnesota with our 2 cats (or babies, LOL)… and couldn’t be any happier! A lot of people think that getting married when you’re 21 is a bad idea, but it was such a perfect choice for us and we don’t regret a single moment together.
Love will find you when you least expect it! Who would have thought that the kid who annoyed the crap out of me in acting class would be the love of my life? 🙂 <3
I was nine years and in the fourth grade when I decided that I was in love with the most perfect little boy on the face of the planet. I like to think that when kids declare that they love someone, whether it be their grandma or an inconspicuous teddy bear, it is probably true (at least to an extent), because kids love people and objects with innocence, naivety, and occasionally, a bit of winsome charm. But yeah, I suppose him being so clever and boyishly smug and having a wild imagination was part of that in-love kind of thing.
From the fourth grade to my freshman year in high school, I was in love with this perfect boy and he was in love with me or just, “really like me, in that way” in that awkward way that boys always define love as. We never exchanged verbal declarations of love for one another. We never felt obligated to hold hands or kiss each other, whether in public or privacy. We never got butterflies in our stomachs when we stared at each other. Everything that happened from the time we were nine years old, pushing and shoving each other, with him showing me tedious pictures of his pet rabbit and me trying to convince him to play Barbie with me, to when we were fifteen years old and having midnight debates about Chuck Palahniuk, the name Jamar, and whether or not Special K was really the best brand of cereal (it’s not) was kind of with a natural inclination. We enjoyed each other’s company and we didn’t have to show anything to prove it. And in a way, that was much sweeter, pleasant, natural than awkward kisses and clumsy make out sessions.
My love and I met via an internet site – back in the days of newsgroups. His message reaching out to me (and others) was not special but he was geographically close enough to consider. We talked on-line to get to know each other – our brains got to know each other without the distraction of the senses. Then we talked on the phone. Oh my, he has the sexiest voice! I was smitten. We hadn’t seen each other though. So we exchanged photos. He is cute! After nearly two months of virtual and phone time – we met in person. He is just as great in person! We lived three hours apart so we only saw each other every other week. As time went on – this was not enough. We got married after knowing each other for 21 months.
We have been married for twelve years and he is still my soul mate, my best friend, and my wonderful husband. We each get pleasure by making the other happy. We are very careful not to complain about each other to friends. We do not snipe at each other. We appreciate what each of us brings to the relationship and enjoy our time together. We promised each other a 30-year honeymoon. It continues today.
I do all the cooking and he does all the cleaning up. This works well for us. We scheduled time to be together since we are both busy. We look out for each other. For example, he reads to me. Remember that sexy voice, so I love our time spent reading. We also have a small heart pillow that says “I love you” and we hide it various places. My pleasure is his pleasure and his pleasure is mine. We make loving each other fun!
This is not a new story. It’s one I wrote on PBS 4 days after my husband’s death. It still touchs my heart and I hope yours.
Well, today is Valentine’s day. NOT a great day – had to change bank accounts, change uitlites to my name, and just do crappy stuff. But the day improves.
Last week, Floyd got a package in the mail. When I asked him what was in it he told me that I didn’t NEED to know yet. Well, I have been keeping my eye open all week, thinking he got me SOMETHING but what??? Looked in the garage – his smoking and hanging out place – damn nothing that looks like a present out there. I’d forget about it – then think hmmmmm wonder what it is – maybe it’s not a present after all? And when doing laundry I’d take another look. Today I was sitting at his computer and saw a Christmas bag. hmmmm what’s this? It’s an empty container for a wallet sized picture frame thingy – EURICKA!! But . . . just the package? I did a little investigating and oh my – on one of the shelves near his computer was this very small (business card size) device. I picked it up and pushed a button and all of a sudden pictures he’s loaded on it appeared. Pictures of our dog, our trip to DC, our son’s wedding, our trip to Kentucky – all loaded as a gift to me. This is a man who always said little. His actions spoke louder than his words. I was just so touched, not by the actual gift but by the time he’d spent choosing and loading the pictures. Then a few minutes later my son wanted something and I opened one of Floyd’s dresser drawers. There was my Valentine’s card – with my name on the outside and signed on the inside. He, being the Boy Scout that he was, was always prepared.
A last Happy Valentine’s gift from my man! Warmed my heart and made me realize how much I would miss over the years. How can such happiness filter through such sadness? I’m just thankful that it does!!
Fall 1975 – went to college 6 1/2 hours from home – mainly to escape the parents and their incessant snooping. THOUGHT I’d met the love of my life and spent all that year of college joined at the hip. Fast forward – Because of so much “boy time” I did poorly in school and was asked to take a year off and come back and try harder next time. I was devestated, no college and now now boyfriend. I started a few classes at the community college and worked (and lived at home). I met a nice guy outside class and fell hard….sweet and oh, so handsome. We dated for 7 months, however of those 7 months he was gone three for basic training and I started back at college 6 1/2 hours away….it wasn’t working, even though he had asked me to marry him and I had said yes.
I needed a ride home from college for Thanksgiving break and no one could come get me….it was find a ride or stay in my apartment for the holiday by myself. I had noticed an old green VW bug with a bumpersticker of a community college 25 miles from my home. Great! If I could catch a ride that close to home someone could come fetch me for the holiday and my fiance would drive me back.
I left the following note on the windshield: To the owner of this car-Are you going home for Thanksgiving break and are you going to the football game first? If so, I could really use a ride home. I will help with gas and driving. Call me, Diane (***-***-****)
I got the call from this guy (a senior) living in the next building with two roomates. Yes, he was going to the game, yes, I could have a ride….
We went to the game and talked non-stop all the way home (he drove me to the door)-we were both engaged and chatted about our trepidations with our future mates – about 5 hours into the ride, I think we may have fallen in love right then. I told him I didn’t need a ride back (he was disappointed) but that we’d get together soon.
My fiance drove me back but turned right around and drove home- maybe he knew.
The “new boy” drove me home at Christmas (we dated for the weeks before the holiday at school) and we, by then, had decided to break our engagements. Those break-ups were difficult, but the right thing to do. He graduated and got a job and I went another year to college because his first year on the job was all travel. We were engaged August, 1978 and married August, 1979. He is the love of my life, my best friend, the father of our two amazing daughters and now we are new grandparents. We are more in love than ever before and I couldn’t imagine my life with anyone else…. we celebrate 32 years of wedded bliss this August–thanks to a bumpersticker and a note on a scrap of paper (which, by the way, he still has)
I found happiness here!
I came to PBS because of my mom being a member here. I met a member named Tony. He and I became friends off this site, and he told me about his single brother-in-law. He offered to introduce us. We began speaking online, then over the phone throughout the month of November of 2008. He drove 16 hours to meet me in person at Christmastime 2008. It was love at first sight for both of us. We moved in a week later, with me leaving everything I’ve ever known to be with him. We were engaged a month later and married a month after that. It has been almost two years since we married and we now have a gorgeous three month old little girl.
I am living my dream of being a wife and mother thanks to a member of PBS!
My husband and I met in jail 23 years ago…no, wait…don’t stop reading!!
We were both volunteers at the County Correctional Center. I tutored some inmates with READING, math skills and was a good listener. My future husband also listened and chaperoned home visits. We had been involved in prison ministry for over a year and had never met.
We were each asked by a retreat master to sponsor an inmate on an upcoming retreat. We both agreed after a while. On April 23 1987 we reported to the correctional center to pick up the inmate we were assigned to be responsible for. Bill and I met in the hallway waiting for them to be released into our custody. We used our own cars for transporting to and from the retreat house. After the days activities we had to bring the candidates back to the facility then the sponsors met back at the retreat house to discuss any progress and problems we had encountered during the day. Bill and I seemed to gravitate to a certain group of people to compare notes with. After that, some of us would go to the chapel to pray, for others’ problems and dilemmas and for ourselves to have the strength and knowledge to help the inmates we were involved with.
After chapel there were always groups to join in for great conversations and we did… we always seemed to end up in the in the same groups then too. Then everyone went to their respective dorm rooms to sleep. Neither Bill nor I was married at the time. We were both committed to helping others who found themselves coping with less than ideal situations. We certainly were not looking for mates…so why were we laying in bed wondering what was happening??
By the end of that weekend we both knew we wanted to see each other again. We would be open for wherever the Lord was leading us. We spent most evenings and weekends learning about our values in life and having lots of fun and laughter. He learned to accept the fact that 90% of the meals at my house had more than just family…there were inmates on pass, the kids’ friends and extended family. I learned that his house was the quiet retreat where we could kick back, relax and talk about things that were on our minds or just sit in the same room and say nothing and feel great about that.
The rest is history. We were married that same year in August. Our combined family has melded as one. We now have 9 grandchildren who are just a precious to us as anything we could imagine.
We can still talk for hours or just sit and enjoy each other in the quiet. We still have times when our house overflows and when it is just us. We have our disagreements like everyone else but we never go to bed angry and always tell each other “I love you” before we sleep. You see, we are truly best friends…even though we met in jail!! Hey, it is certainly a conversation stopper when anyone asks us where we met.
my dad worked for chrysler when they decided to move to st.louis,mo. he moved my mom sister,brother and me to alton,il to be near him while he was working for them. i was only ten years old at the time. that is how i got th know my now husband. my mom and decided to move back in our home where i grew up. a little later my husbands family decided to move to ky also. we didn’t have much to do with each other until my freshman and his senior year. after he graduated high school he joined the marines and spent two years in the service. when he returned in august 1969 we started dating, christmas that year my parents gave their permission for us to be engaged to be married if i would promise to finish high school that june. on valentine’s day the year we married without the other knowing we bought each other a card the funny thing is it was the same card and no one knew what we had done so we knew they didn’t tell the other. needless to say we married in april and i graduated in june. we had a rough year in 2009 when my husband was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer [fast type]they said without surgery he wouldn’t live past one year, but with prayers from families and churches he has not had to have chemo nor radiation treatments.on april 24th 2011 we wil be celebrating our 41st anniversary.IF IT IS GOD’S WILL
It was St. Patrick’s Day and I was 21, just out of Harvard and in my first job, out on the town for an evening of fun with my room-mates from my very first apartment. My parents had been married for 27 years, were still together and a little nervous that I was out living on my own. He was 20, had never been to college having been recruited just out of high school into the Navy; his mom had been divorced twice and was currently planning her third wedding, a country western affair where everyone would wear jeans.
The fleet had landed and the Faneuil Hall bar was a sea of Navy uniforms. My friends and I thought twice about settling in but finally decided, ‘what the heck, they’re young, they’re cute and they’re serving our country, what could be bad about a little harmless flirtation with some sailors’.
I accepted an invitation to dance from one guy and then another and was just sitting back down at our table when I noticed a sailor standing alone at the bar, nursing a green beer. At the very same moment he turned, leaned his elbows on the bar and started surveying the crowd. Our eyes met, held for a moment or two and then he started to walk over. “Never saw green beer before,” he said holding up his drink. We laughed. He sat down. We talked. We laughed some more. We danced and an electric current I had never felt before filled my 5’2” body.
I brought him home to meet my parents the next day. They were shocked at the circumstances of our meeting but kept their cool. He proposed on Valentine’s Day two years later.
Our two wonderful boys are 14 and 11 and my friends all envy our marriage. Sometimes when you know, you just know.
She was in several of my psych classes and I noticed. On a group project she was paired, alphabetically, with one of my roomates, and I noticed. She looked lovely and I noticed a lot. We dated and, after a few months I knew what I wanted, I asked her to marry me.
But, it was 1969 and I had been accepted into the Peace Corps and was slated to leave for Malaysia for two years. She said, “Maybe”.
I left with a heavy heart and a vow to write every day (no email, texting etc). Three months later, after much soul searching and a growing hole in my heart, I elected to return to the US. With amazing swiftness I found myself on a plane and a two and half day odyssey half way around the world. I did not have time to write or call to tell her – so, early in the morning I knocked on her door. We married later that year and have been together, and very much in love, ever since. Forty years and counting.
On Valentine’s Day 2005, I was pregnant and my husband Todd gave me a card that read, “I can’t wait to meet you, Mommy. Love, Rhys”. Three days later (and 3 weeks earlier than expected), he was born. Guess he really couldn’t wait. 🙂
The first time I saw her I was five years old. She was a good deal older, a product of her experience with boys and even men of sometimes questionable regard. I understood nothing at that age, but just recognized a longing to be closer to her. She noticed my eagerness to learn her ways, and as she always had for boys (and sometimes girls) who’d shown a genuine interest, she dropped a few breadcrumbs to keep me on track.
Our proper introduction came at the age of eight, ironically alongside eight of my school friends, though some had already known her for a year or more. I was hooked for life because she let me reach first base on my very first try. I think she knew it would make me another lifetime devotee of hers, creating another boy-to-man memory that would define much of who I became.
She never left me through the years, though I often drifted. I was able to sneak her into my high school and she, in turn, got me into college.
But alas, in the city my attention was captured by another. She wore pinstripes every day, and knew more than anyone else about things I wanted so badly to learn. So I said goodbye to my love of a lifetime, only to find out later why I loved her in the first place.
Though I had left her for the new girl on the block whose family dangled a successful career, she never held it against me. She welcomed me into a few of her homes through the years and entertained me as if we’d never parted.
Even today, when I see her on television, I feel a singular connection to her. It’s as if she’s telling me, nay, beckoning me, “you can always come back, you can always come home”.
But I just can’t seem to step back up to the plate. Yet.
Thank you for waiting, Baseball, m’lady, my elusive dream.
I got married very young, had a child a year later and then became a divorced survivor of spousal abuse. Alone with my child and wanting to spread my wings and enjoy all the things I’d missed I dated a lot but only as long as the relationships were superficial and empty. The minute things got even a little serious I’d be gone.
Then the secretary at work mentioned that her son had come back from the army and was driving her crazy with his constant boredom and I offered to take him to some of the party spots I visited frequently. She jumped on the offer, thinking that the party girl was just the cure for a man home from the army and she kept trying to line up a date for him with the local Catholic virgin.
We were complete opposites. I was a divorced woman with a child, lots of baggage and trust issues and wild. He was a good Catholic boy who’d never dated and was sort of a nerd. Took me all night to get him to hold my hand but there was something there and we made arrangements to date again the next weekend. I called off a date with the local Chippendale bouncer that I was seeing at the time to go on this date with Greg and we were never apart again much to his parents’ chagrin. He asked me to marry him a month later and the wedding was three months after our first date. Bets were exchanged between many of the wedding party members and family members and the prevailing opinion gave us three months before throwing in the towel.
We’ll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in two months and I still get weak in the knees when he kisses me.
My valentine and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary on March 7. In September of 1980 I, a 30 year old divorced Home Economics teacher, decided to renew my high school interest in music by joining a local community band. The very first night I attended I was asked to share a music stand with the only other wind instrument player there – a 41 year-old widowed father of two. We began dating a week later, and were married to following spring. We now have 3 children (we adopted another one after our marriage), and a baby grandson. We still play in a community band and our church orchestra. I guess you could say we are still making beautiful music together, and I hope there are many more pages yet unplayed.
Do you ever say something, in you thoughts, where no one else can hear you, and feel it? Feel the truth of what you said pluck your heart strings?
The day I saw him across the room I said to myself “Maybe he’s the one.”. This little twang happened in my heart, and I told myself, “I didn’t mean anything by that, I was just kidding.”, but in my chest was this breathlessness that was difficult to ignore. I didn’t get to meet him then… we were both there for a conference that lasted for a few days. I made myself look away when I saw that he might see me staring at him, I kept my distance and didn’t allow myself to be near him… the feeling I had made me nervous.
That night I went to bed and decided to put it out of my mind; but in the early hours of the morning I dreamed of him and saw little flashes of our future together. He was talking to my dad, we were getting ready for our wedding, smudged lipstick from kissing goodnight. I woke up with a feeling I had never had before. A feeling of the rightness of this…. I still didn’t know his name.
Later that day I made myself not run away from meeting him. His name? Jim. I made myself look into his eyes as we got to know one another. At the end of our time at this conference he asked for my address and phone number, and we spent the rest of the day together, in a time warp of just being. No need for words, it was enough to just sit together and be in each others presence.
When I got home, a week went by and I still hadn’t heard from him. I was so disappointed, I just knew that he had been interested. Finally a letter came and I responded… Then the first dozen roses came, red roses. All I could say was “Wow.”, over and over. 1,400 miles apart it seemed to far to work, but letters, phone calls, and then he was coming for a visit for a few days.
A little while after he arrived, we went out for a drive, he said, “I want you Elizabeth.”. I was silent… I wanted to hear he loved me. “Want me?” I thought. What should I say. His voice broke into my thoughts “I guess I’m waiting on an answer.” Tenatively I said “Of course I want you too…” thinking to myself, “Should I say I love him first?” An uneasy silence fell over us as we drove and then he turned to me with this pain in his voice, “I love you Elizabeth!” I saw in his eyes he meant it and I didn’t care if the car wrecked, I kissed him.
February 14th came with me completely sad and forlorn. He had work and wasn’t able to come. He called and he was driving south east of the town he lived in. I should have guessed. The doorbell rang, and there he was, it was raining. He got on one knee in his suit and tie and asked me to be his wife. I of course said “Yes” and tried to kiss him. He stopped me and put a diamond on my finger Five months later we were married and I remember that first night in our bed when he said… “I don’t ever want to be without you again”. It is 13 years later now, but if I can help it, he never will be.
It was 1993 and I was an awkward 11 year old starting middle school. I had a close knit group of friends that had been by my side for elementary school, but as time (and hormones) go by things began changing. My “BFF’s” were just classmates and everyone had paired off into cliques. Lunch was a lonely time….
That’s when I met Cory. He was just as awkard of an 11 year old…soft spoken and polite; everything most 11 year boys ARE NOT. He was skinny and had the stereotypical (and unfortunate) 1990’s trademark bowl cut, glasses, and the fashion sense of Mr. Rogers (Yes, my friends, he is wearing a cardigan and tie in his 7th grade photo). We became fast friends and became each other’s rock during times of adolescent hardships. We dated other people through out high school but we always seemed compare our dates to each other. We danced together at prom both years, and I can tell him to this day what song was playing during both. After graduation, we both realized that we only wanted each other.
Our relationship is seamless. We don’t have to hide anything from each other; at this point it is virtually impossible. Youth’s problems of grades and curfew have given way to Cory mending my broken heart after the death of my father, supporting each other in this crazy world called marriage (and parenthood!), and caring for me during dark times that almost cost me my life. People ask me all the time how I can be so young and have been married for 10 years and still in love with the same man. Easy, I tell them. Fall in love with your best friend.
Connie Cousins: I needed a job. I was fourteen and went with a friend to a local ice cream stand. As we were being interviewed in the owner’s kitchen three young men walked through into the living room. The owner told us that his son and two buddies were going to enlist in the army that week. I didn’t pay much attention as they were obviously several years older that my friend and I. I got that job and worked there each summer and into the fall till closing when the weather got cold. When I was just turning sixteen and at my spot at the drive through window, I noticed a flash of light. I looked toward the source and there were two men sitting on the lawn next door with binoculars, and yes, they were looking at me. It turned out to be the owner’s son and Wayne. Wayne came over and teased me at the ice cream window about going out with him. I was embarrassed and laughed usually, but one day I said o.k. Later that evening I was coming back from tennis, and saw a car in front of my house. It was him, and I pretended I had just forgotten the time. (I really didn’t think he was serious.) We went for a ride, got something to eat and he never stopped talking. Turns out he was nervous. We dated three years and married, when I was still getting my nursing education, but I kept on and finished and later went to Anesthesia School with his blessing. We had four children who all turned out well (nine grandchildren) and we had almost 43 years together when he died. After his death (December 2005) right before Valentine’s day, I found a card he had given me years before. It was in with bills in a drawer and I had no idea where it came from. It said, “If you’re looking for your valentine……I’m it.” A simple reminder that what we had was good and it comforted me… and still does.
My husband and I met February 18th, 1977. He came into town with a friend and I was asked to take them to see the big 610 bridge in Houston. I got them lost. We drove around a long time in Houston until they saw the HWY they came in on and knew where they were and got us back to my home. We were sitting there and talking and he leaned over and kissed me saying he wanted to take the sadness away.
I had broken up with my boyfriend 4 months before and my mom was so worried about me. I had not come out of my room in that 4 months except to go to school. She had tried everything… even tried finding dates for me with guys where she worked lol.
We knew each other two days and he asked me to move in with him. (I was 16 and he was 18) I went and told my mom and she cried for 3 days asking us not to that but to get married. So on the 5th day of knowing him he asked me to marry him.
We went into my moms bedroom where she was laying and crying and we told her. She stopped crying, sat up smiling and asked when. He looked at me and then at her and said 2 weeks. She started crying again and said she couldn’t plan a wedding that soon, so he asked how long she needed. She responded 3 months. (she later told us that she thought by the time 3 months passed we would have broken up lol)
We had a big beautiful wedding with lots of family. I heard later some of my aunts were heard to say that they gave our marriage 6 months. This coming June we will have been married for 34 years. We have 3 grown sons and a 10 year old daughter and 2 grandchildren. Many look at all we have been through and say we are a miracle. I agree. We have been very blessed.
my story probably isnt that romantic but when i met my special someone i was sitting at my back door which was a sliding glass door working on the computer and this guy was working on the guttering on my apartment building as he went up the ladder i glanced at him and went back to what i was doing. He went halfway up the ladder and come back down and told me to pull the curtain back and let him get a look at me. I was flabbergasted to say the least so i did and was stunned that he was so darned sexy and handsome. We talked for awhile i invited him to dinner which he never showed for and then he called me with some sob story about 11:30 that night and asked if he could come by. Against my better judgement i let him i let him and we sat and talked all night long and then slept talked the next day and we have never been apart since. He just kind of moved in that night and never left, we are more in love now than we have ever been. He calls me his queen and will do anything for me, he holds my head when im sick and dries my tears when i cry, and offers me wisdom when i lose my way and need some guidance as i do for him as well. He is someone i never thought to ever find in my life but i am so glad i did. we have been there for each other through some of the hardest times i never thought to ever encounter in my life. He has been a father to my daughter and been there to comfort me and offer words of wisdom recently as she turned 18 and moved out to be with her boyfriend and didnt ever want to see me again. What more can I say other than we are perfect together and have stayed together through all obstacles and people who have tried to break us up and there have been many, and yet here we are still together and still hopelessly forever in love