Love Happens in the Strangest of Places!

In the Fall of 1994, I was going through a messy divorce. I had two daughters, 13 and 15, and I was working hard to make a life for them on my own. I had a good job, got my own apartment and bought a car so I was feeling pretty confident that I could succeed.

I had been through some rocky relationships and had made the decision that I was content with life as it was, just my two girls and me. We had become pretty close at the time but I was still pretty strict on them since they were girls. However, we were happy with each other and lived in harmony (how many people can say that they live in harmony with teens?) so life was good. I no longer felt that I needed a man in my life to be happy or to create a good family for my girls. Therefore, I was not "in the market" for a new relationship.

It was an unseasonably warm Sunday in November (the Sunday before Thanksgiving) so my youngest daughter and I decided to take the radio out on the porch and just sit and enjoy the day. We were just laughing and talking when suddenly we heard glass shattering! Thinking that someone had been in a car accident closeby, we walked out to the street to se if we saw anyone in need of help. When we couldn't find an accident, we walked back to the porch, thinking that it must have been on the adjacent street where we weren't able to see it.

Just as we sat down, facing the set of apartments across the driveway from ours, I saw a man step out of the apartment building looking around. He waved and said, "Hello, ladies!" I asked him if he had heard glass breaking and just as he opened his mouth to answer, a train came roaring through! The tracks were right in our front door!

Knowing that there was no possibility of us hearing him, he walked over to the porch where we were and proceeded to tell us that it was a lady upstairs in their building that had thrown a shoe through the window during a fight with her boyfriend. We cracked a joke about being glad it was a shoe and not the boyfriend! He introduced himself and we did the same. He sat on the porch steps and visited with us for about an hour. I had no idea that this was the beginning of a whole new life for us!

I really don't think it was what you would call love at first site but more like an infatuation on the first meeting. But it would progress more quickly than I would have ever imagined! He returned each afternoon after work to sit on the front porch and visit. He never asked to come inside and until I felt totally comfortable with him, I wouldn't offer.

However, on Tuesday, my nephew came over to visit and we were sitting out on the porch when he drove up. At this point, I felt confident that I could invite him in since the girls and I wouldn't be alone. So we went inside and played cards until late that night when all went home. The next day after work, he came back over and this time I was comfortable enough to invite him in. We watched t.v. and visited, had a lot of laughs and even talked about dreams of the future, what we wanted from life, things like that.

Just seconds after he had left to go home that night, there was a knock at the door. Considering it was pretty late, I figured he had forgotten something. It was him and he wanted to know if I knew how to cook a turkey! Of course, I did! He asked if I had any plans for Thanksgiving (the next day) and I told him that I didn't since our family does ours on the Saturday after each year. He said that he had a turkey that his employer had given him but didn't have the pan to cook it in and was wondering if I wanted to cook Thanksgiving dinner together. Of course, I agreed.

We had a wonderful time together and so did the girls. They really liked him and looked forward to his visits. This is where things pick up speed! I enjoyed his company so much that I decided the next day (with some encouragement from the girls) that I was going out on a limb and ask him out on a date! The girls would be gone over the weekend and I had never been so bold as to ask a man out! But I did!

Friday night came and I was a nervous wreck! Not about being with him but about asking him out! I was raised old school and this was a totally unfamiliar situation for me. To make a long story short, we went out, came in and fell asleep watching t.v. It was wonderful! The next night was pretty much a rerun, again, watching t.v. together until we both fell asleep. By then, I was convinced that this man was truly interested in me as a person and not just hopping between the sheets! I think it was at this point that I truly began to feel love for him.

In mid December, we rented a house and moved in together (although he slept at the apartment every night since the first date). We went through some tough times in the beginning, as most couples do but by April, had set the date to get married on July 7, 1995. Funny thing is that we have gotten along better since we got married than we did during the time we first moved in together. I think it is because we had just had time to work through all the major issues and had developed a true respect for each other.

All these years later, we are closer than ever. I am not saying that we always agree. Heck, I think we'd get bored with each other if we did! But we love each other more now than we ever did and I know that love will deepen by the day.

Someone asked me once how I could be so sure that I would love him more each day and I simply told them that, after 12 years, when I get butterflies like a school girl every time he comes home from work, it couldn't be anything less than true, eternal love! He jokes sometimes and tells me that I don't love him, I am just infatuated with him and I just tell him that if infatuation is this wonderful and long-lasting, I can live with that! Isn't it funny how, when you stop searching for love, it seems to show up in the strangest of places? Oh, and the girl who threw the shoe through the window? It turned out that she was his ex-girlfriend! It just goes to show that everything happens for a reason!

Bonnie Ramsey