Blogtember Continues and It’s A Two Shoes Tuesday

By Mary Hill

Things are really going to get hoping around here as Mary-andering Creatively and Mary-andering Among the Pages tackles a major publishing schedule for the next two weeks, starting today.  Later this morning a special post as part of the September 2013 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Staying Safe goes live at 8 a.m. You may even see that post before this one. Tomorrow (Wednesday) on both sites I will be participating in a major book cover reveal celebration for a book written by one of my new bloggy best friends so check that out too.

Also, if that was not enough, I want to stay on track with my blog hops so here goes.

First, comes Blogtember sponsored by Jenni at Story of My Life. Today’s prompt is Tuesday, September 10: Describe a distinct moment when your life took a turn. Second is Two Shoes Tuesday sponsored by Josie @ Two Shoes in Texas. 

This week’s prompts White or Lies.

                                            

It was a Saturday night in Liberty, SC at a line dance country place: July 28, 2001 to be exact. My former marriage of 11 years and 10 months had ended officially in June.  It is a sad tale that I think I will save for another post.  My friends and I were gathered at the dance hall to just have fun and to help me move on. I had no intention of meeting anyone, but little did I know that this man from another upstate South Carolina community was going to walk in and change my life forever.

            

I spotted him across the room and told one of my friends to look toward the snack bar at the gorgeous guy that had just walked in.  She told me to go ask him to dance to which I said, “No way.”  Her retort, “Either you ask him to dance, or I will go over there and tell him you think he is hot, and you want him bad.”

You have to know this friend. This was not a bluff. So instead of being horribly mortified and embarassed I walked across the room and tapped him on the shoulder. “Would you like to dance?”

He shook his head and said, “Yes.” He would come get me for the next slow dance. The next slow dance was  Kenny Chesney’s “The Tinman.”  It went so quick, but I did manage to ask him a couple of important questions. “Do you like dogs?” “Where did you go to college?”

He loved dogs, and he did not go to college. I said, “I am so happy you love dogs,” and “I could tell.” Open mouth, insert foot. The dance ended, and he said, “Thank you” and shook my hand. 

We met the next two weeks at dance hall for slow dancing and then went on our first date on August 24. He was two hours late because he got lost traveling to my then hometown over an hour a away from his. He made it up to me the next night by showing up at my door with flowers. “I want to take you out again and make yesterday up to you.” He called it his “redemption date.”

Then on September 11, when I was working in my middle school library in our broadcast and taping center more than 60 miles away from him, I watched the first tower falling in New York at 8:05.  I will never forget the site of those towers coming down and then seeing the footage of the plane crash in the Pennsylvania field.  He called me from his town square that night where an impromptu memorial service was taking place. I could hear hundreds of my future towns people singing, “Amazing Grace.” I cried while listening to the hymns. We stayed on the phone together for at least an hour.

A few days later, he called me out of the blue and said, “Mary, I think I love you.” I said, “Oh, oh.” Insert foot time again.  We spent that Christmas traveling to Gaitlinburg and then in February 2002, he proposed.  I was 36, and he was 41. We knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together. He had slipped the ring on my finger in the night.  We planned a June 15 wedding so that my older brother and little sister who were living overseas at the time could come home for the wedding.

We had a fight that same month. I told him he owed me a “Rose, bud.” He delivered.  We found out in March our daughter was on her way. We bumped up the wedding to Friday, April 19, 2002 so that I would fit into this gorgeous white wedding dress that I had bought special for our June wedding. I mean by then I would have been almost four months pregnant, and I was afraid I would not fit into it. We had a beautiful wedding too. I picked two special songs for the day which I have linked up below.

Looking back, I can’t believe it has been more than 12 years since that July night when we met.  Life takes us down twisty roads that sometimes lead to dark places.  The light is always around the corner. My faith in Christ, the love of family, and my wonderful memories of the best 12 years of life will sustain me through anything.

God bless you everyone. I pray for our country on the eve of September 11. I pray for peace in Syria and love and peace. Amen.