It's me again writing to you and wishing you were here. After recently finding out some of the story of the earlier lives of my parents, I thought it would be a good idea to go ahead and tell you the story about your mother and I and our relationship through what has now been over 10 years. I always loved hearing stories of my parents and other family member for that matter, but found them to be few and far in between, so I thought I'd lay it all out for you here, so you'll never wonder and get no response. The first memory I have of your mother was when I stayed the night with a friend and that night we went across the street to a girls house that he knew and your mother just happened to be there. There were three guys and three girls and a game of spin the bottle broke out. We were all really young, maybe 7th and 8th grade, and I remember that no matter how many times the bottle spun, no one would dare kiss each other, but the shear chance that someone might have, kept everyone attentive. She was just a little girl with braces and big oval glasses and I didn't really think much about her to be honest because we always seemed to be into older girls rather than younger. Well fast forward 2 years, she had grown up and I remember noticing her for the first time in the hallway with the guy she was dating at that time who was a Junior and the Quarterback who was in front of me on the football team. I just remember thinking, "Man, who is that...She is smokin' hot!"
As I said before I never really paid that much attention to her and why, I cannot remember. Maybe I was so focused on older girls as she actually was the only younger girl I ever dated or maybe being a poor boy, I just thought she was out of my league, I'm not sure, but what I do know is that one trip to Six Flags over Georgia on a youth trip opened my eyes forever. I was a junior and she was a sophomore I was sixteen years old and she was fifteen. She had broke up with the older quarterback and began talking with the running back which was in her same class. Again I didn't think anything about her, but somehow and I have no idea how, it ended up being one of my friends and his girlfriend and then your mother and I riding all the rides together. I don't remember pursuing her or seeking out this double date of sorts, but rather she just kinda popped up and I was, "Okay...ummm this is cool" and so every ride I'd ride...there she was with my friend's girlfriend and so eventually it ended up being the four of us together all day at the park. Well, the ex-boyfriend who was the quarterback was also on this trip and I guess he had stiffed out that a little something might be going on, so later that day I remember running into him and him pulling me aside and asking me if something was going on. Being on the other side later, (as the story played out), looking back , I later knew exactly how he felt, but at that time I really didn't think anything was going on. I was friends with him. He was an older guy that had kinda taken me under his wing and I really liked and do like him even to this day. My intentions weren't bad at all as I was always considered myself a loyal friend, but at this point they had been broken up for a little while and she had already been seeing another guy for a little while. So I told him the truth, I really didn't at that time know that anything was or would have been going on, but later that night was a different story. We had been together all day and I remember the sweet smell and deep satisfaction I felt as she laid her head on my shoulder once we got back in the church van to go home. Now how it happened I wasn't sure and this is where your mother and I's stories diverge, but on that there school bus with her grandfather Potts driving, she laid a big smacker right on my lips! lol From there I thought, "Whoa, there may be something here", but I wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation. We returned back home and she to her the gentleman she was kinda seeing and I really asked alot of big question in a sort of self-huddle, if you will. I knew that this was big and that if I was going to date her then I would want it to be long term and serious. So we got back and questions were still lingering in both of our minds. What were we to do now? She had a guy she was kinda talking with, but yet we had an awesome time and had kissed!?!? I remember the awkward feeling when we first spoke upon returning home.
She had decided that she was going to stick it out with the gentleman she was talking to thinking that she had started talking with him for a reason. I completely understood, but honestly it wasn't out of an understanding in the mature sense, but rather that I wanted to patient because I didn't want to play any games if I dated her and I felt that if I let her go and let her relationship with this new guy run it's course, then when it was all said and done, she would be ready to settle down and be serious. Isn't that funny, serious at 16 haha, but to me at that age it was dead serious to me and something that I saw the potential to be so precious to me that I didn't want to screw it up. So I let her go, however she didn't stay gone long. It may have been 2 or 3 months at that most and during that time we were flirting what seemed like every chance we possibly had. We had this little low profile way of saying that we like each other and it was with a simply flip as we passed by each other. At that age, it was quite amusing and enticing for the game of young love. So shortly after all this, she and her boyfriend had broken up and it was time that we talk because we both knew that we wanted to be together. I remember talking to her before we made it official and I reminded her that I wanted our relationship to be serious and after stressing this point, we decide that we were officially boyfriend and girlfriend.
Our love for each other grew strong really quick and I remember telling her that I loved her very early and in fact, I cannot remember how long into our relationship, but I looked at her and I told her that I was going to marry her someday. She'll tell you to this day that she thought I was the craziest dude alive and that there was no way we were going to get married, but little did she know, after a long hard road, that would indeed come to fruition. So there we were boyfriend and girlfriend as a Junior and Sophomore in high school. Our love grew, but our youth and passion wasn't the ideal formula for a relationship and as a result arguments and breakups were exceedingly abundant. It was much like the movie the Notebook. Our love was passionate and our young emotions so volatile that one minute we would be telling each other how deeply in love we were and the next we would hate each other's guts. :) Crazy I know, but young love often times contains this formula. As a result of the fighting and I believe the fact that I had nothing and was from a family that didn't rank high in social status, her mom wasn't too fond of me. However to her defense, I now , thinking with a parent mind, understand why she wasn't fond of me. While my lack of money, status, and supposed future success was a factor in some degree, I believe a great deal of her loathing toward me was a result of what she saw. She never saw the moments of love and good times we shared, but only the fighting and arguments which seemed to her to be the majority. So I found myself in a battle, sometimes simply against the ideology of her mom, sometimes against her friends that often saw the same, and even sometimes against them and your mother as well. I fought for our relationship even when she herself was against it. I knew we were supposed to be together. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew she was going to be my wife and so I fought with great determination and passion and I vowed to never give up.
We broke up my Senior year and I was devastated. I remember being completely sick at my stomach and not knowing if I could go on. All the milestones of my senior year which I had pictured her sharing with me, were not as I had imagined them. Instead, I spent each day simply breathing in and breathing out, putting one foot in front of the other and taking one day at a time hoping that one day she would realize that I was that someone she couldn't live with out. During that time, a big dream of mine had come true. I had been accepted to my dream school, The University of Tennessee. I wasn't quite sure how it would all work out, but I was so happy to be running from the heartache that engulfed me at that time. I had been told I would never make it at UT and that I should go to Roane State Community College, so I was bound and determined to leave it all behind me and make something of myself. So In August of 2000, I moved into Gibbs hall at the University of Tennessee. As a little small town country boy graduating with only 68 in my class, I was excited about the fresh new opportunity I had been given in a world which now seemed without limits. By God's grace, I quickly became popular through joining KA, a fraternity on campus and also being chosen as 1 of 40 entering freshmen to represent the freshmen class on what they called Freshmen Council. During this year, I meet a lot of beautiful girls, but in the back of my mind, I knew the one who was to be my bride. I didn't' have any contact with her at all, until one day at the end of my first semester of college, I received a letter from her in the mail.
She apologized for everything that had happened between us and for treating me as she did all that time. I don't really remember how it happened, but somehow we ended up getting back together and she ended up coming to my Old South Formal with KA and I to her Senior prom which I had always dreamed of doing. At the end of the next semester she came to UT as well and everything seemed to be back to normal, but every year or so and oddly enough it seemed to be every February we would break up for sometime. She explained to me later that she ran because she was constantly telling herself that she couldn't possibly marry her high school sweetheart, but through it all I just kept fighting for the one I knew was going to be my bride. This continued off and on through my whole college career until the Spring semester of my Senior year, which again oddly enough happened to be February. At this junction, she decided again that she didn't want to be with me and I was completely exhausted of fighting for our relationship in the face of overwhelming adversity. I remember telling as we were breaking up that if this is what she wanted then it was over for good and that I wasn't coming back. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting in the GNC parking lot on Kingston Pike next to the Ice Chalet we spent several date at throughout the years. She said this was what she wanted and she was sure of it and so I was left again, completely devastated in a dark parking lot, however this time I had lost all hope. I had fought for so long with every ounce of passion and determination and perseverance that I had and more and for the first time in over six years of our relationship, I gave up. I quit, because I truly believed there was no hope any longer. So for 9 months I laid bed heartbroken, with questions racing through my head and a knot in my throat and heaviness in my heart.
The first few months, it was all I could think about and I remember writing every night in my prayer journal asking God to help me understand what was going on and to bring her back to me. Eventually, my heart became hard and slowly I convinced myself that I had to move on. And so, that is what I attempted to do and I met a lot great girls which I did care a lot about, but still none captivated me like your mother. We would run into each other at date parties and such and we would each have another and would be living our two separate lives apart. We would both act like we were having the time of our lives and that everything was great, but inside we were both dying and hurting to see each other with another and thinking that maybe each other truly had moved on. To make things that much more interesting, I was still coaching her Sororities powder puff football team and she was the quarterback. As you can imagine this was rather awkward, so I just chose not to look at her or talk to her about normal thing. Instead, I would tell her to put more arch on the pass or to get rid of it quicker, etc. and then carry on with my duties. There was no "It's a nice day, isn't it?" or " How have you been?", nothing. I showed up, coached the team, and then I was gone to my own separate life. After about 7 or 8 months, I had finally began to embrace the idea of moving forward and I had pushed her out of my mind and hardened my heart to her.
During this time, I found out that I had a job offer with Pulte Homes in Atlanta and I would graduate in December and start in January. This caught your mother completely off guard as she kept a tally of what was happening with me through my brother who was helping coach the team and she thought that I was going to Nashville to accept a job with the same company. Now, what I didn't know was that the Lord had been working on her and confirming that I was the one for her and so this all came to climax one night as we were warming up for one of our last football games of the season. I could obviously tell something was not right with her as she wasn't playing as well as she usually had and so after we finished warm up and began walking over to the field for the game, I pulled her aside. I began getting on her from a coaches perspective saying, "Look, I don't know what's going on with you, but we have got a game to win and all of your teammates are looking to you to led them and if you're not in the game, then they won't be in the game." And I'll never forget, tears began to slowly roll down her face and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that her tears weren't coming as a result of my lecture, but rather there was something churning deep in her heart. I remember being overwhelmed by my realization of this fact, but having hardened my heart toward her and convincing myself that I was finished and that all hope was lost, I told her to get her head in the game and then I turned and left her and walked straight to the field. I remember feeling the mixed emotions and unstableness of that walk. I knew something was going on, but I didn't want it to be because I had worked so hard at shutting her out, but at the same time, deep inside, my soul was rejoicing. A month or so passed and my graduation and departure to Atlanta was two weeks away and your mother knew that if she didn't say anything, that I may be gone forever and if she left words unsaid, she would regret it the rest of her life. So just over two weeks before graduation, I received several text messages from her saying that she wanted to meet me and I ignored them before finally answering and turning down her request saying that I didn't want to see or talk to her. After her persistent attempts, I agreed to read a letter she had written me and that she was going to drop off before she left for the SEC championship game.
I opened the letter and I couldn't believe what was on the page. For the second time, she had written me apologizing and telling me that she had realized she was running because she thought she could never marry her high school sweetheart. I remember being livid because she had sent me this letter. I had finally shut her out of my life and had begin to see my future without her and then two weeks before I started another season of my life, she writes telling me all these things. I was so mad. I was mad because she had put me through it. I was mad that she was placing this decision on me when I had already had plans of starting my life without her in the picture. Mad that she decided to say this 2 weeks before graduation. I was just mad! Completely livid! And so with full intentions on telling her that I was finished with her and that I had moved on and was starting my life in Atlanta, I told her I would meet her the night of graduation in our hometown at the football field where we would always meet for our serious talks or arguments. I'll never forget that night. It was raining and I pulled up in my truck and she got in and we sat there. She began to say she was sorry for treating me the way she had and at first I had no sympathy for her words which I had heard before and carried no confirmation of validity. But as I tried to hold strong to the stance of my hard heart not looking her in the eye but listening to her words, I noticed something different. Rather than trying to justify her actions and defending herself as always before, she instead sat with her head in her hands sobbing uncontrollably.
Looking back as this difference became evident to me, I realize now that my heart which had become hard was starting to slow soften and the byproduct was anger and frustration. And so I began to tell her of the pain I had dealt with month after month, night after night, and minute after minute. I told her of the nights I would lie awake sobbing and crying out to God for understanding. I began to remind her of all the times she had hurt me during that time and how I had fought for her in the face of her offenses. All this harbored hurt and pain was melting from my hardened heart and the whole time sat sobbing with her head in her hands saying over and over again, " I know, I know...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." And so, I found myself with only one thing to say to her as the conversation was coming to a close, "I can't promise you that my heart will not be hardened toward you in the days to come. I can't promise you that you, like me, will not be fighting for our relationship alone and against me. But I do know this one thing and that is that I love you and because of this I'm willing to take one day at a time." In utter shock as she had already set herself up for bad news, your mother continued weeping grateful to God for another chance.
I'll never forget that night. It was a huge fork in the road of our relationship and as I said, I had every intention of ending it for good, but God had other plans which I couldn't see. He had answered the thousands of prayers that I had sent him in His own timing and in hindsight was exactly what I needed when I needed it. God is good and God is faithful son. And so your mother finished her last semester at UT and affirmed me all throughout that semester calling when I may have concern and being open about everything that was going on because we were 3 hours away from each other. She then moved down to Atlanta with a friend and on December 27, 2005, at our home church, I asked your mother to marry me in front of our friends and family. On September 23, 2006, the day I had prayed for, hoped for, and dreamed about for so many years of ups and downs and great adversity, by the Grace of God, I had prevailed and I took your mother to be my bride. That is the story of your mother and father and I must say, looking back, through it all I wouldn't change a thing. The Lord taught me so much through my suffering and I came to depend on him when nothing could ease my pain. He was faithful and will always be faithful working for the God of those who love Him. By His grace, although undeserving, I stand with the woman's hand which I hold and by his grace, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I am truly a blessed man.
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