A Love Story

The song ♫Leaving on a Jet Plane♫ ran continuously through my head as I watched my beloved walk from me down the dark, barely-lit street in the middle of the night.  The memory of the physical and emotional pain I felt is still with me.  He had already taken his car to his parents' house in Illinois where it would be garaged for the duration, so he had to walk the several blocks to the boarding house where he was staying.  I was 16 and he had just turned 21.  I would be in class--a senior in high school--when he boarded the bus to Detroit the next day where he was to be drafted into the Army....

That's Ken in the first row, second from right

We'd only known each other 10 months, but we were inseparable.  During that time we saw each other practically every day.  I was in 11th grade when we met.  He had gotten a job after leaving Valparaiso (Indiana) Technical Institute and was taking some classes at night at Valparaiso University.  It was at one of the Wednesday night Student Union dances that he'd asked me out.  We'd seen each other the Saturday before at his roommate's band practice when a friend had taken me over to see the band.  Ken asked around about me and found I'd be at the University that evening.  We went on our first date that Friday, November 11, 1966, and fell in love.

One of the places we liked to go to was the Ratskellar coffee house at Piper's Alley in Chicago.  We'd sit in the darkened room, holding hands listening to Folk music....

For my 16th birthday later that month he sent me roses....

We'd write each other poems and play my Dad's guitar in my parents' basement....

We both loved the music of the 60's and saw Simon & Garfunkel close up in the University's gymnasium....

He took me to my Junior Prom that Spring....

...in his 1948 Pontiac....

We drove to the Indiana Dunes following the all-night After-Prom Party....

We dreamed of the time when we could be married and talked about names for our children.  I wrote all our names in my diary....

That summer I told him my parents were moving us to Kalamazoo, Michigan.  He quit his job and moved with us in August.  We planned to marry as soon as I turned 18 the end of the next year, but Uncle Sam had other plans for our life together.  Right after the move he received his draft notice.  I went with him to visit his parents in Illinois one last time.....

The following February he left for Vietnam and was gone for a year and a day.  In those days the only communication we could have was through the postal service.  We would write each other every day and occasionally sent cassette tape messages to each other....and lots of photos....

You can see his letters on my Hope Chest

Ken was an MP (Military Police) and would provide protection for convoys between camps

  
Then, finally, February 7, 1969 arrived--the date he came back to me.  It was a whirlwind week of last minute wedding preparations.  He'd bought his wedding suit in Singapore on his R&R, but still needed to buy shoes, get our license, and our rings.  Then he went home to see his parents for a few days.  When he came back on Thursday we went to see the movie Romeo & Juliet.  This song still stirs within me how it felt to wait and wonder if he'd ever come home to me...

                            

Tomorrow, February 15th we'll celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary....

We've been blessed with three fine sons, and now have two lovely daughters-in-law and a granddaughter on the way.  We've had our struggles, financially and relationally, as we both had changed that year we were apart....but that's what marriage is really all about--making a commitment to love each other no matter what so that we could work through the struggles, growing closer to each other in a deeper way.  In every sense of the word, we'd saved ourselves for each other from the very beginning--before we'd even met--and have honored the vows we made before God and witnesses.  To me, that is the greater love story.

Happy Anniversary, Sweetheart!     x♥x♥x♥