I am a 38 year old Mechanical Engineer, father to a beautiful 13 year-old daughter, and am in the last stages of finalizing the divorce from my wife of 15 years. This is my story, warts and all, and in telling it I do not wish to cast blame or villainize anyone. I also don't want any sympathy. I only want to tell the story. If it resembles a comedy of errors then so be it.
I cannot recall the precise moment when I first met April because I was only 5 or 6 years old. I have been friends with her brother Brady since 1st grade (we are still close) and as a result have known her (although only casually until after my mission) for a very long time. The Long household was not a typical one. April's dad, Robert Nathan Long, (a man I admire very much and always will) suffered from Multiple Sclerosis for over 30 years before it overtook him in 1995 and claimed his life. His story could be the subject of an entire book but for my purposes here I will only say that he was an extremely devoted husband and father, a very positive person, and the greatest model for dignified suffering I have ever personally witnessed. My earliest memories of him are seeing him in a wheel chair that he could roll himself around in. As time and the disease progressed he went from the relative independence of being able to wheel himself around while he had the use of his arms, to a chair he controlled with his chin, to being completely dependent on his caregivers for absolutely EVERYTHING. The children, including April, were part of his care team. I admired the Long family for the devotion to their father and especially, Pam, his wife, for being his primary caregiver all of those long difficult years. It is worth noting that he first began to feel the symptoms of the disease while they were on their honeymoon - which always seemed unfair to me. When you first marry the person you love, you never envision anything but 'happily ever after' - so it is tragic to me that they never really cleared the starting gate and got around the first turn before they were blind sided by this cruel disease.
During our growing up years I saw April on a regular basis but never really talked with her. I think that to her I was just one of her brother's annoying friends that contributed to the awful smell coming from his bedroom. However, later on she would confess that she thought I was the 'nice' one (a label I am accustomed to for good or ill) and really the only one that, according to her, would acknowledge her existence. But to me she was always my friend's sister with the really thick glasses and I never saw her as anything but that until after I got home from my mission.
I returned home from my mission to Puerto Rico in the summer of 1994 and really didn't know what I wanted to do with myself but there were two things I did know that I wanted and needed to do: go to school and get married. I come from a fairly large family (5 brothers and 1 sister of which I am the second oldest) so to me, family has always been a huge part of my life. Plus, being a Latter-Day Saint, I have always lived and breathed 'family'. Family, family, family. When my mission ended I had a final interview with my mission president in which he told me in so many words: "this is your final transfer, report home and find your new companion". I was excited at the prospect and really wanted to find 'the person' I could love and be loved by. The problem for me was that I have always been kind of quiet and introverted which is not very conducive to talking a woman into spending the rest of her life and eternity with you. As a side note: I apologize to anyone out there whom I may have offended or hurt because I was too afraid to talk to them or give them the attention they deserved. So, if you were any girl at Hillcrest High School, then I was afraid to talk to you.
So how does a shy introvert get married? Here is how it happened to me:
It was in the spring of '95 that April's father passed away and it was at his funeral that I really reconnected with Brady and we began to hang out and do things together. One of our favorite things to do was go to Utah Grizzlies hockey games. With our student ID's we could get half price tickets and we loved to sit down close where you can hear the cursing and see the blood on the ice. Why hockey? I really have no explanation for that. We didn't understand all of the rules (I still don't) and I can't ice skate worth crap but we went to almost every home game that season.
I don't recall at exactly what point it happened but April started coming with us to the games. When I saw her the first time after I got home from my mission I jokingly asked Brady who the new hot girl was. Gone were the coke bottle glasses and the shy young girl and it their place was a vibrant, funny, taller, version of the the little girl I remembered from before - and she was pretty.
Brady orchestrated our first date by telling each of us that the other wanted to go out on a date - just the two of us. I think he had started to feel like the third wheel on the unofficial dates that our hockey outings had become.
I was so nervous to ask her out but I somehow mustered the courage to do it. Our first date was a smashing success and I was completely head-over-heels smitten with this pretty young thing. Apparently it was mutual as she later told me that she went out and bought brides maids dresses for our wedding after our third date (I had no idea). I knew I was going to marry her - there was no doubt about it - and apparently she did too.
So what does it mean when you just know - after prayerfully considering a big choice that feels so right - that you are supposed to do something only to have it not work out? I wish I knew the answer to that. I believe that when you get an answer to that type of prayer it is only the Lord telling you that He approves of your choice because it will allow him to teach you what you need to learn and to operate in your life how he wants to. It seems counter productive and counter intuitive but I know that I have learned things I could not have learned any other way. Why else would he allow such a thing? The most glaring reason is 13 years old and goes by the name of Haley. My daughter is such an interesting combination of her parents. She has her mother's assertiveness and my even temper - her mom's dry sense of humor (which I have always loved even though she never thought I 'got it') and my patience and 'niceness'. I really feel like she inherited the best traits of both of her parents.
At any rate, we were in love, and were off to a pretty good start. We were married July 19, 1996 in the Bountiful temple. It was a beautiful bright day - a happy day. If you had told me on that day that in 15 years it would all come crashing down I would have either laughed you to scorn or hit you in the mouth. Here are some photos from our wedding. She really was beautiful. She was so little I could lift her over my head.
 |
| Photo taken at the Garden Park Ward in SLC |
 |
| July 19, 1996. Bountiful, Utah Temple |
We went on our honeymoon to Cancun Mexico and had a great time even though I lost my wedding ring at the beach and April got food poisoning from the guacamole at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a memorable time in a tropical paradise. There was no indication for me that things could ever go wrong...
No comments:
Post a Comment