I was such a city kid, and he was such a country boy. I moved into his house in June because the well at my house had broken. He had been hauling water to me and my animals for several weeks when he suggested it would be easier for us to move to his house till it was fixed. Once there, I never left.
Five people settled into a two bedroom house with the only bathroom in the master bedroom, so everyone could traipse through our bedroom to pee.
We went immediately to get a pull out bed for the boys and the baby slept in what I called the junk room, which was really a second bedroom, but because the house had been built with very few closets, the Man kept all his stuff in there. That make the port a crib sort of lost in a sea of junk. But you know, we were happy. We had Saturday night TV night and watched wrestling and made popcorn and all slept together in the living room. The kids began to look for him to come in from work and could hear the old red Ford’s motor about two miles away. This would generally cause a jumping up and down reaction with choruses of “Daddy’s home.” He asked me one night who told them to call him Daddy. I had to confess that no one did, I guess they just began to think of him in those terms. The well got fixed, and we were sitting on the porch when I told him that I really hated to go home where we were alone again and he replied, “Well, don’t go.” I didn’t, and I’m still here. I wonder if he realized how significant those three words were. Much more life changing than I love you.
From June until August of the next year (fourteen months later) I asked him everyday when we were going to get married. When we went to bed each night I would say, “When are you going t make an honest woman out of me?” He would answer the same everytime, “Soon.”
Fourteeen months passed, and I don’t think any of us had ever been that contented. We were sitting on the porch one evening after supper, the kids playing outside when he said out of nowhere, “Do you want to get married?” I didn’t know what to say; I mean I had pretty much given up on the idea of him getting married. After all, he had been a bachelor for fifty-six years. I almost fell out of my chair before I could get the words out of my mouth, ” Of course, when?” “On Friday,” he replied.
Friday was four days away, and I had final exams that week in order to graduate university, but I was so afraid he might rethink the entire idea that I said o.k.
The entire week I was nervous. Of course, it didn’t help that he teased me constantly about standing in front of the JP and when they said the part where he answered, “I do” he would instead say, “Well, let me think about it.”
August 3, the day the first-born and family arrive after an eight year absence will be our 28th wedding anniversary. Ain’t life amazing??