I had a work meeting to go to in my hometown. So the last weekend in January, Jon and I planned to take both our cars to Oregon. After a night or two, Jon would head home and I would stay and go to my meeting.
Oh! But I had forgotten a very obvious, very crucial, important thing. My parents or sister or Jen didn't even know I was dating anyone, let alone getting ready to get engaged. I decided I should update some of the most important people in my life.
"Hey I want to bring a boy home. We've been... dating." I told my mom.
"Oh that's great honey! See you when you get here!"
Next came the call to my sister.
"WHAT???? Why didn't you tell me? Who is he? When did this happen?" My sister was pregnant at the time, so don't judge. Thankfully the news didn't cause her water to break.
I realized that maybe I should have said something sooner when I talked to Jen, one of my best friends in the world.
"What? WHAT? What is it?" She's prone to freak out at most anything, so go ahead and judge. :)
"I'm uh....." I proceeded to tell her the shortened version of our Love Story (parts 1-20). I should have told Jen to pull over first.
"WHATTTTT?! You're not serious!!!" She may have almost wrecked her car in downtown Chicago.
With that checked off my list, we were good to go. We headed to my parents' house. It was great timing, too, because my brother Casey had just gotten home from his mission. I would be interested to know his first impression of Jon (hint, hint).
Up until now, Jon hadn't been to college, but he expressed interest in doing so. He still worked at the radio station, and he had been promoted from sales to promotions, something he really enjoyed. He had thoughts about becoming a teacher.
What he knew of my family scared him a bit. In my family, education is extremely important. My parents, my sister, and brother Casey are all BYU grads. My two other brothers are BYU-I grads. My mom had a master's degree, and soon all three of my brothers would earn master's as well. My brother-in-law was a doctor. And did I mention all of my grandparents were college grads? My grandma graduating with a degree in chemistry from Berkley at a young age?
To someone with no college degree, it was intimidating to say the least.
Jon felt a little deflated, like my family's expectations were high and that maybe he didn't measure up. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind. Jon had wanted to go to school, and so it wasn't a question. He would go. He wasn't a college grad yet, but he wanted to be, and someday soon, he would be.
Something else my parents instilled in us was encouraging each of their children to go into whatever profession they wanted. Our passion and talents would be our guide. At first Jon was insecure about wanting to be a teacher. But the particular vocation wasn't important. If that is what he wanted to do, that was great! I told him my feelings straight from the heart.
"If I had to choose between you making lots of money, or earning less but being home a lot, I'd choose you being home. I don't care about money." Of course, I care that our needs were met, but honestly, having nice things had never been a priority to me. What I wanted was to marry this guy and have kids already. And I wanted a husband who was proud and passionate about his work. I wasn't sure Jon was convinced.
We arrived in Oregon. He met my parents and they already loved him. I showed Jon the farm. He survived meeting my kooky grandparents. And then, we asked my parents into the living room to "talk."
How do you start a talk like this? I wasn't sure. So I just blurted it out. "We want to get married..." I told them. By the looks on my parents' faces, it was pretty obvious they had already figured it out. By the time of our second date, I think it was pretty apparently to most everyone that Jon and I were stuck together like glue.
"Ok!" But they had one stipulation-- that the wedding date worked for our family. "Your sister is pregnant, so just make sure she will be able to come to the wedding."
We chatted, and as always, my parents whole-heartedly loved and accepted what I wanted to do. But my dad took it one step further. I don't know how, either he had heard or just sensed, but he figured out Jon seemed a little insecure about not having a college education.
"You know," my dad said, "if I had to choose between serving a full-time mission or getting a college education, I would choose a mission every time."
I think that was exactly what Jon needed to hear. Anyone who knows Jon even a little bit knows that his LDS mission to Ecuador was one of the pinnacles of his life. He loved it, and he grew a lot there. My dad's mission had been important to him as well, and it was comforting to see them share that in common. Things seemed all clear for us to go ahead and get married.
And now, all I had to do was wait for Jon to get me a ring and "officially" propose. >>Continue to Part Casey
No comments:
Post a Comment