Love

That encounter set the stage for our friendship. Amanda was well liked in the singles group with plenty of young lady friends and young men vying for romance. I was just her brother’s good friend who lived a block away, a convenient person to catch a ride with occasionally, but she liked that. We’d occasionally go for bike rides around the beaches and towns of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach, but I didn’t try to push myself on her. I watched one guy after another try to move in on her and just crash and burn, as if she had an invisible force field keeping them from getting too close. It became apparent to me that she was very discerning when it came to romantic relationships. I sensed that she tolerated me because I was friendly without pushing to get too close or to dominate her time and attention.

Our friendship continued that way for about a year as we grew to be good friends. We had a lot of respect for each other and admired each other for specific characteristics. But Amanda had no romantic interest in me at all, while I couldn’t help wishing we could move to a more intimate relationship. I knew my time was limited because I was on my fourth year at Cape Canaveral AFS and the USAF would likely reassign me soon. Then, in the early spring of 1988, I received notice that I had been accepted into the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) as a candidate for a Masters Degree in Engineering Physics. I’d be moving to Wright-Patterson AFB (WPAFB) near Dayton Ohio by the end of May.

About this same time I received an invitation to a friends wedding. Their reception would be at the Patrick AFB officers’ club and I could bring a guest. I decided to ask Amanda.

I staged my question to Amanda as casually as I could so she wouldn’t feel like I was trying to move in on her romantically. I wanted her to feel that it was just an invitation to spend some friendly time together, and it almost worked. Amanda later told me that she would have said no immediately if I’d shown romantic intent, but she momentarily considered going along as my friend. Still, she felt it seemed a bit too serious so she was about to say no when I mentioned that the reception would be at the officers’ club. She’d never been in an officers’ club and something about that intrigued her so she said okay.

This positive response was almost miraculous. I had approached her with just the right tone to avoid immediate rejection and she hesitated just long enough for me to mention the officers’ club which I had no idea interested her. But that wasn’t the end of the miracles.

After Amanda had agreed to attend this wedding with me, a few of her best friends in our SALT group made plans for a ladies’ night out the same evening. Amanda wanted to join them and desperately regretted accepting my invitation. I had no idea of the struggle she was going through. She hated to back out on me, her good friend, and she still really wanted to see the officers’ club, but she wanted to spend the evening with her lady friends much more. Her respect for me, along with her sense of responsibility to keep her word and the mysterious curiosity about the officers’ club all combined to just barely prevent her from canceling. Still, she made up her mind to leave the reception as early as possible so she could join her friends—better late than never. But she was too embarrassed to reveal this plan to me.

The big night finally came and when I picked Amanda up at the apartment that she still shared with Rex she looked beautiful. I didn’t know she’d dressed herself with the plans of joining her lady friends more on her mind than the wedding. I did notice during the wedding and reception that she seemed impatient and distracted. She complained about the wedding taking a long time and annoyed that the reception took so long to get underway. She later confided that she though I looked silly in my bright red shirt and white tie. I’d actually dressed to impress her, but my fashion sense was (and still is) severely lacking. Fortunately she has always been a kind soul so she kept her feelings about my attire to herself.

Amanda kept checking her watch thinking that she wouldn’t have much time with her friends if she didn’t escape soon. Finally she realized that it was hopeless. It was so late there wasn’t much point in joining her friends so she just wanted to go home.

Amanda didn’t share any of these thoughts with me. All I perceived was her moods and they came through loud and clear. It stressed me out as I did my best to be friendly and help her to have fun. We’d always enjoyed our friendly times together before. I couldn’t figure out why she was so stressed this time.

When we finally finished our dinner and the formalities of the reception were complete, I asked Amanda if she’d like to go for a walk on the beach. (The Patrick AFB Officer’s Club was on the Atlantic coast.) I don’t know how I persuaded her to say yes. I think she figured she’d go along and ask me to take her home after a few minutes of walking. With hindsight it seems another miraculous turn of events and timing worked in my favor so we ended up strolling in the sand with the tumbling surf providing a romantic sound track.

I remember it as one of the most nerve-wracking moments of my life. It took all my concentration to stay focused and communicate my message. Somehow I managed to explain to Amanda that I found her attractive and wondered if we could be more than just casual friends. I informed her that I sensed she wasn’t interested in romance, but I had orders to move to Ohio in 6 weeks. If there was a possibility of anything more serious between us I only had a short time to find out.

Amanda’s normal response would have been immediate rejection, but the fact that I was leaving made her pause. She knew it was a now-or-never decision. I wouldn’t be around if she changed her mind in a couple months. Her silence lasted long enough to make us both feel a little awkward, but she had reached a decision. As she began to formulate words in her head to reject my offer without hurting my feelings I made another offer. Sensing her hesitation I said she didn’t have to answer right now, but she could take some time to think it over. So she said okay, she’d think about it. Through miraculously precise timing I avoided rejection one more time.

Over the next few days I puzzled over Amanda’s hesitation. I didn’t think what I had asked her was such a big deal. All I wanted was to spend a little extra time with her over the next 6 weeks with the possibility of romance open. We’d just see if we might enjoy a slightly more intimate relationship. I hadn’t asked her to marry me or sleep with me or anything huge like that. Amanda was constantly on my mind and in my prayers.

But for Amanda it was a huge deal. She had been through a lot of bad relationships with guys and had decided not to date again until she met the guy she thought she should marry. So even though I hadn’t mentioned marriage she was thinking to herself, “Do I want to marry this guy?”

During the next week I had to travel to California for a work meeting and I decided to have some flowers delivered to Amanda. I wanted to send her roses because they seemed like the most romantic choice, but it didn’t’ seem right to send red roses because officially we were just friends. I decided that yellow roses would be appropriate.

It was a gorgeous bouquet and Amanda loved them, but she couldn’t imagine who they were from. Her image of me was so void of romance that I didn’t even cross her mind. When she read the note she was shocked. She didn’t know I had it in me to do something so nice, but she resolved not to let this push her to a hasty decision.

That night Amanda woke up suddenly, shortly after falling asleep. She says she went from an early stage of sleep to sitting straight up, wide awake, in an instant, as if she’d had a startling dream, but she wasn’t dreaming. Then the words “Roger’s praying for me” came out of her mouth, spoken out loud. The strangest thing was that she says I wasn’t even on her mind until the words were spoken. Immediately after that she said, again out loud, “Roger’s going to marry me!” The words startled her because it seemed planted into her brain as if from another source. She felt that the words she spoke originated from somewhere outside her own mind. She wondered if God was talking to her. But she didn’t want to be irrational so she resolved to store the memory away and not let it influence her decision.

Another miraculous coincidence is that I probably was praying for Amanda at the time this happened. California is 3 hours behind Florida so I wasn’t in bed yet even though I usually go to bed early. I spent a lot of time praying for Amanda in my hotel room that evening so even though we don’t know the exact timing of Amanda’s waking from sleep or my prayers, I was definitely praying for her around that same time.

The next weekend Amanda happened to be celebrating her 21^st birthday. Some of our friends from the SALT group wanted to have a surprise birthday party for her and they asked me to set up the surprise. They asked me to invite her over to my apartment for lunch on Saturday pretending that my roommate would be out and it would just be the two of us. They would all hide in the apartment to surprise her then take her out to a gazebo in my apartment complex where there were picnic tables and space for lots of people.

Everything was set up perfectly. We had lots of people with food, gifts, a cake, etc., down at the gazebo where Amanda wouldn’t see it. When Amanda came in the apartment everyone yelled “SURPRISE! Happy birthday!” She was so shocked she just stood there with her mouth hanging open.

No one else knew that I had asked her this serious question the weekend before. I didn’t even know how seriously she was considering the question. She expected a private lunch where I would want an answer, but she had no idea how to answer me yet. When she knocked on my door Amanda was feeling intense stress over facing me, and the shock of a room crammed full of people yelling at her was too much. Her brain just shut down so she stood frozen like a statue.

I might have been the only one to perceive her shock. Everyone else seemed to be laughing and chatting away, but I had my eyes fixed on Amanda and felt concern for her emotional state. So I asked Amanda’s roommate to start herding our guests down to the gazebo while I remained behind. When everyone was gone except me and Amanda I asked her if she was okay and apologized for the deception. I told her I still wanted to fix her a private dinner, but I couldn’t do it on her birthday because everyone else wanted to have this party. After a couple minutes she’d regained her mental bearings and was able to join the crowd for her birthday celebration.

I don’t remember if it was the next day or the following weekend, but I did follow up with a nice dinner for Amanda, all made from scratch. It wasn’t a huge surprise because she already knew I was a good cook. I wrote her a poem and read it to her. She seemed touched by all I was doing, but she still couldn’t answer my question about giving us a chance at romance. Since I only had a month left before moving away she agreed to spend a little extra time with me, but that was all. For me, that was enough.

I remember that we spent a lot of time together, bike rides, walking on the beach, going to church together, just sitting and talking. We probably ate out a few times, maybe saw a movie or went bowling, but I don’t remember those activities. I remember watching manatees swim in canals near our apartments, the first time I held her hand, the first kiss on the cheek, the first time she kissed me back. She never responded to my question about romance in words, but her kiss gave me the answer I’d hoped for.

We shared details about our childhoods, our faith, our hopes for the future. We were very transparent and honest, revealing the most shameful things we’d ever done along with our successes. We discovered that neither of us wanted to ever own a TV. We both thought 4 kids would be nice; 2 boys and 2 girls. We didn’t have dreams of becoming rich. Our material ambitions were humble. Our personal values were very compatible and we were both thinking that we could be lifetime partners, though we never spoke directly about marriage. It seemed inappropriate to discuss marriage so soon when we’d just started a serious relationship.

That’s where we were when the USAF shipped me off to Ohio to earn my MS in Physics. The AFIT program is very rigorous because the USAF wants to make sure the American taxpayers get their money’s worth from the education they are paying for. So I was very busy with my studies. Still, I made time to write to Amanda every day and we had a couple long phone conversations every week. Back then the phone company billed all long distance phone calls by the minute so spending a couple hours on the phone every weekend was costing me over $100 a month which was a lot of money for a young USAF Captain in 1988.

Every time I had 3 or more days off from school one of us would buy plane tickets to visit the other. Usually Amanda would fly to my parent’s house in Michigan and I’d drive up there to be with her.

Over the summer I decided I wanted to marry Amanda so I purchased an engagement ring and wedding band set from the Wright-Patterson AFB exchange jewelry shop. It was beautiful with a single large diamond and gold band. The gold rings curved gracefully at the diamond so that the engagement ring formed a peak on one side, and the wedding band made a matching peak on the other side. It was very simple, but elegant. Every night I’d get the ring out and admire it, holding the diamond in the light of the lamp by my bed, turning it and watching the reflecting light beams sparkle, hoping she’d like the ring, but hoping even more that she’d say yes.

We spent Labor Day weekend together at my parent’s home. During the weekend Amanda and I walked to the Platte River, about a half mile into the woods north of my parent’s house. This was a very special place for me because I spent a lot of time back there when I was growing up. My siblings, cousins, and neighbor friends used to swim in the river and explore the woods. It’s a very beautiful place that hasn’t changed much even today.

There was a natural picnic area near the river bank where the old dirt road went down close to the river. The ground leveled out with just enough elevation above the river to make it solid and dry. Privately owned land surrounded the place so only a handful of homes along that stretch of Fewins Road could get there without trespassing. Someone had made benches and a fire pit and even brought back a wooden picnic table. An old railroad bed ran along parallel to the river that the lumber company had abandoned years ago after removing all the iron rails. Just downstream a series of ponds formed on the uphill side of the railroad bed where it cut through property that my great uncle owned years ago when he farmed the land just across from my grandparent’s farm. My dad often spoke of a family friend who raised trout in those ponds when he was young.

Amanda and I walked down the railroad bed and back through the dense hardwood, poplar, cedar, and hemlock forest that had grown up after lumberman logged the old growth pines nearly 100 years before. The sun streaked through the tree branches illuminating flowers that sprouted from the forest floor. Flowers had always been plentiful back here as far as I could remember.

I picked a small flower with a leaf branching off the stem and secretly slipped Amanda’s engagement ring over the flower so that it hung up on the leaf. As we sat on a log near the picnic area I discretely extracted a proposal poem I’d written from my pocket and handed it to Amanda.

The log we sat on had been a poplar tree when I was growing up. It held special meaning to me because my dad had carved his initials in it when he was a teenager. Later, when he married my mom, he added her initials under his and carved a box around them. The tree continued to grow for nearly 2 more decades before it died and it had recently fallen, but the bonds it symbolized lived on. Now a new relationship sprouted in the fertile soil of love just like the young poplar trees sprouting in the forest near the stump of the special tree that we sat on.

When Amanda finished reading my proposal poem she turned to me with watery eyes and I held out the flower with her engagement ring, grinning sheepishly and hopping for a positive response. She was so choked up that she couldn’t speak, but she snatched the flower from my hand and gave me a tight hug. Now in my heart I rejoiced sensing that her hug shouted an enthusiastic “Yes!” but my mind was thinking about the ring on that flower.

Raising children is a true labor of love and I could continue the love story for many pages of parenting experiences, but I think I’ve rambled on long enough.

I believe God brought Amanda and me together because we’re a good match for each other. We have compatible personalities and values with just enough differences to add some spice and mystery to our relationship. After 30 years of marriage I’m convinced that most men would have left Amanda or driven her away. God gifted me with enough discernment to see how precious she is and how to respond to her without destroying her. But I’m far from perfect, and I have my share of annoying habits that challenge her ability to love and respect me. In spite of my shortcomings she has been faithful. Her love is true.

Now I know what true love is. True love rejoices in shared goodness, forgives hurts, perseveres through difficulties, strives for understanding and compassion, always does its best, gives without demanding, and appreciates every gift. Amanda and I are truly in love.