To Robert and Darla

Happy anniversary, you two love birds.
31 years is incomparable, especially with an annoying pest as a daughter.
I love you both greatly. 

Written November 11th, 2013

People from Oklahoma often have the same story.  Go to school.  Get a degree.  Find your soulmate.  Get married.  Have babies.  Live happily ever after.  For the most part, my parents’ story is much like other Oklahomans.  And maybe I'm being biased, but there's something rare about my parents' love story--something unique and beautiful.  Sure as a child I never quite understood the divine and unwavering love each one shared for the other. Actually, the moments that stand out in my mind are the dark ones.  I remember the times that they would argue and one would be in a car speeding away because the pain and stress of the moment was too hard.  I thank them now for knowing when to walk away, but they always came back and they always forgave.

 It wasn't until this past year that I myself fell in love with my parents' story.  I distinctly remember my parents taking my sister and I to the exact place my mother first laid eyes on my father.  She was walking down the hallway of her universities broadcasting department offices.  She saw two people having a meeting and one of them was my father.  I believe the reaction we grew up hearing from her was "Oh man, who is that hunk," or something along those once embarrassing lines for a nine year old.  But now, I treasure that memory of walking down the exact hallway my mother found her "knight in shining armor."  I often find myself looking back at the specific date this cosmic sighting happened.  What was my mother wearing?  What did the place look and smell like?  Minute details really, but I can't help but want to know everything, every detail.  Exactly when they both knew the other was "the one."  How they felt when they knew.  What dreams as young 20 year olds they had together.  Of course, the story doesn't end there.  My mother virtually stalked my father until he finally asked her out.  I imagine that if there had been Facebook at the time, my mother would have spent most of her nights checking my father's Facebook page waiting for a new status update or a new profile picture to salivate over.  This could be viewed as over excessive, but her persistence was successful.  

Growing up I would ask my parents whether or not they were going to get a divorce.  At the time my logic was reasonable.  Many of my friends' parents were or already had gotten one, and I heard they got two Christmases.  What kid wouldn't want that?  Now I know that it's much more than two Christmases to have my parents still happily married after only dating for six weeks, then marrying eight weeks later.  It's unheard of to share a bond so deep with someone when you've really known for less than two months.  My parents' relationship is a testament of devout love for each other.  After 30 years of marriage, my father still makes my mother laugh like a high school girl falling for her first love.  His jokes are terrible, but when I see the smile on my mother's face after the corniness has enraptured her heart, I know they're golden.  And my father-- where to begin.  He is the one person that will truly never leave my mother.  When he married her, he unknowingly signed up to be in a household full of three strongly opinionated, highly dramatic women.  And yet, he can still pride himself in saying, "those are my girls."  It's true that my parents have had some hard times.  They've been poor and they've disagreed many times.  In today's society, that calls for a divorce without the thought of counseling or trying to make things work, because it would jut be too hard to be struggling in life and married.  What my parents have taught me throughout my 23 years is that, love is forever.  Love is heartfelt.  Love is hard and messy, but it's also beautiful and amazing.  I, too, would love to have a marriage just like my parents', because being married to my best friend looks like a wonderful, wonderful blessing.  Or at least that's what my parents taught me. 

Stay true, stay real.

H.