Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.
C. S. Lewis
Our third-anniversary approaches, so I guess it is time to share the story of how My Taller Half and I came to be.
My youngest child graduated high school a couple of months before I moved to Pixley. I had planned to leave the city I had lived in for fourteen years for a place that was quieter and more affordable. Unfortunately, the friend who was planning to drive the moving truck for me had conflicts, and I was without a driver only six weeks from the move.
I am nothing if not resourceful. I had noticed that a friend from a social media site mentioned on his profile that he drives a truck. We grew up in the same approximate area but several years apart. We both frequented state history pages and political pages. We had messaged a few times, very platonic chats, but that was the extent of our relationship. I needed help, so I decided to take a leap. “Can you really drive a truck?”
“Yes, why?”
“Would you be willing to do me a favor?”
Understand that, at the time, MTH lived in a larger city a couple of hours away. We had never met in person or even had an in-depth conversation. But he agreed to drive the truck. Problem solved.
I enjoyed a few moments of relief before the anxiety set in. I didn’t really know this guy, yet I was inviting him to come to our apartment to help with the move, to be around my stuff, my adult children, and me. So for the next six weeks, along with work, packing, and a trip to Pixley to work on the house, I pestered him daily. I wanted to know all I could about him. He wasn’t used to long messages or online conversations. He usually ended our chats with, “Go away, child.”
I learned a lot about his life. We talked about music. We reminisced about life in the area in the 30, 40, 50 years earlier. He told me about the long battle with illness that nearly took his life. We talked about the faith we shared in Christ. I knew I annoyed him with my constant questions, but you can never be too careful. I may have worked into the conversation how I have a concealed weapons permit and was a practiced shot.
The move was a bit of a disaster. I wasn’t as prepared as I should have been. Things didn’t fit on the truck the way I believed they would. My kids and I worked hard to get things together, and MTH helped put some order in the chaos. I felt awful. He hadn’t signed on for anything but driving, but he seemed to enjoy himself. My daughter and her friend were convinced he was sweet on me. They “shipped us.” I was pretty certain he wanted to throttle me.
A mixup with the appliance delivery had me abandoning them for the house. My youngest and MTH headed up later with the truck. We unloaded and then headed out to deliver the truck to the rental office. After a very long drive back to MTH’s place, I headed back to Pixley. I had to work the next day.
A day or so later, a planter with flowers arrived at my door, a housewarming gift from my friend. We had gotten in the habit of daily chats, and these didn’t stop after the move. A few weeks later, I drove my youngest to college in the same town where MTH lived. We met for lunch before I headed back to Pixley.
A couple of months after moving to Pixley, The Big Storm hit. I was alone, so MTH stayed on the phone with me, chatting with me, teasing me, distracting me, and praying with me while huge trees outside my window rocked. Then the phone went out, and he had no idea what had happened. The storm deserves its own story, so I will just say that I was without a car for three days, without a phone for four days, without power for six days, and without internet for a month. I telecommute. After about a week of working from Panera in another state, I accepted the offer of some good friends of mine to come to stay with them and use their internet. So I began working there during the week, heading back home for the weekends. My friends live about 30 minutes from MTH’s old place. We all got together for meals occasionally. It was during these little visits that the ritual of the flashlights began.
Not long after the internet was restored, I was scheduled for surgery. My kids were all busy, and I had no one to help me after the surgery. MTH rode over two hours on a bus to meet me for the surgery and to tend to me afterward. Then there were the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners that we shared with my family at a restaurant in the city where he lived because two of my kids were living there. He also invited me to a big family gathering in honor of his niece’s birthday. These weren’t dates. We never actually dated. We were friends whose time together involved meals and errands.
After the holidays, there was a bit of a lull. I didn’t see my son again until Spring Break. Not long before I was scheduled to pick my son up, I was chatting with MTH online, when he wrote, “So, do you think Pastor X should do our pre-marital counseling?”
I had to read and re-read that a few times.
“Did you just propose?
“Well, I think he would be a good choice.”
“It isn’t a proposal until you ask me to marry you in person.”
When I picked up my son for Spring Break, we met MTH for lunch. No proposal. Maybe he was kidding?
When I took my son back to school after Spring Break, we all met for lunch. Unbeknownst to me, he asked my youngest son for my hand while I was distracted by a call. I had to drive MTH back to his house before heading back to Pixley, but he needed to stop to get cat food. In the pet food aisle of my favorite grocery store, which also happened to be a convenient, air-conditioned spot, MTH pretended to find a ring box on the shelf and asked me to marry him.
Reader, I married him. Three months later, and about a year from the time I asked him if he would help drive that moving truck, we married in his church using the liturgy from my church, in the company of our families and dear friends, some of whom we also met online. Over the next few weeks, My Taller Half, along with his rescue cats, settled into our little home.
I don’t really know how it happened. MTH and I are an unlikely pair. He rescues cats. I’m a dog person. When I was 17, I was a nerd on the Brain Bowl team at my high school. When he was 17, he had been living on his own for years, traveling all over the country, doing any number of jobs, and spending an inordinate amount of time at rock and roll shows, giving very short girls a better view of the stage from his shoulders. It helps to be 4’31” tall, but he professes that he thought he was bulletproof at the time and wishes he had taken better care of his spine. (He has drawn up plans in his mind that will allow anyone to give the vertically-challenged a fair chance to see the stage without injuring a backbone. Look for the Kickstarter some time in the next 1-30 years!)
As I grew to know him, I grew to love my gruff, tender-hearted friend who rescues animals, gives me flashlights and pocket knives, calls to check on me while I make long drives so that I don’t get lost, and who prayed with me during The Big Storm. He will pray with me through all life’s storms until death do us part. I still irritate him, and he still occasionally says “Hush, child,” but we are happy. Life together is an adventure .. even in Pixley.