Saturday, February 7, 2009

Love Stories for Valentines Week

Over the next seven days, as we approach Valentines Day next Saturday, I would like to invite our readers to post the story of how they met and fell in love with their husbands.
In the bedlam of diapers and teething I think it is easy to forget the intense love that started it all. This week should provide us a great chance to collectively remember and enjoy one another's stories. I promise, I will go first. Give me one hour.

7 comments:

JesusThroughMary said...

You do have male readers, you know...

B-Mama said...

This should be great fun! Thanks Awol!!

AWOL Mommy said...

correction, how they met and fell in love with their husband OR WIFE. Thanks JesusthroughMary - now I assume we get your story?

JesusThroughMary said...

Now that I'm invited to do so, sure... ;o) Thanks.

It'll be interesting to see the difference in how a man describes meeting his wife as opposed to how a woman describes meeting her husband.

Joanne said...

Well I can't post it on my blog(s) because they are about my kids and my husband would die of embarrassment so I'll say it here? I hope that's okay.

We met in a crazy way, I had just moved back to IN after six years in NYC and I went on a bus trip to see the Cubs in Chicago and we met then. My sister knew him and we had friends in common but I had never met him before (that I recalled but we HAD met and I forgot, which I can NEVER forget about now). We sat together at the game, which he was scoring and which I thought seemed really smart, somehow. It seemed like another way to enjoy the game. We proceeded to many bars afterward and my sweet husband may have a drunk a little bit too much because on the way home, he yelled at my sister "Laura, I am going to marry your sister!".

We didn't see each other for like six months and then we met at a retirement party for mutual friends. The party had been rescheduled three times because of bad weather, so it was funny that we were both there, finally. He started hanging around where I worked (I was waiting tables at the time) and finally he asked me out. We got engaged four months later and we started in RCIA (he as a candidate (I can't remember the word for what he was, though, he had never been baptized, I am pregnant and have no memory anymore) that September.

When we first were talking about getting married, my husband would talk about converting and I thought I didn't care. I can't believe I was so cavalier about it, but I figured I would just be Catholic and take the kids to church and it wouldn't matter what he was. As I say, even typing it, I can't believe I ever felt that way because now it's such a giant, important part of our marriage and family.

He was Baptized and made his First Communion and was Confirmed in April of the next year, then at some point he made his first Confession, and then we were married. Five Sacraments in a few months! My father is his Godfather, everything just came together beautifully. I remember we went to church together for the HDO on December 31, the year we were engaged and he had what I would have to call an epiphany about Jesus Christ and the Church and how much he belonged there and I still am so amazed that I get to be a part of this man's life and conversion.

When I met him, I thought he was smart and funny and that we had things in common, but I just had no idea - I had no idea that he was who God made for me. I feel lucky beyond measure every day that I ever met him.

Right Said Red said...

Joanne,

Thank you for sharing. I enjoyed reading your story.

Juris Mater said...

Joanne, what a great story! I love the five sacraments in a few months part : ) And so sweet about his pursuing you by hanging around where you waited tables. There's something very charmingly old-fashioned about that (I'm very charmed by old-fashioned, traditional things in general, I'll confess). I remember when I was a part-time waitress back in the day daydreaming about being pursued in that way. You know, the guy sitting behing a table, enjoying watching you work, then ordering a drink as an excuse to chat with you... ahhh, very romantic Joanne! Props to your hubby.