I met the most wonderful man the summer of 1970. I was 17 and a senior in high school. He was 20. I worked at the A&W as a Car Hop and he was the assistant manager working his way through college. I fell in love with his crooked smile immediately as well as his shyness which was so very endearing. It was one of those summers which you remember all of your life, the smells, the music and the first pangs of love. We dated all though the summer and it seemed like every love song played that year was created especially for us.
Then in January, he soberly took me aside and told me that he had enlisted in the Air Force as he believed in his country and serving it. I was absolutely crushed and it seemed like my world had just gotten a lot smaller. We dated until the day he left and I wrote every day. Before he finished basic training he found he had orders for Vietnam. He told me not to wait for him but I told him I would. I still wrote him but he stopped writing back. I went on to college and even though I dated I knew that my heart still belonged to him.
A year after I graduated I married a sweet and kind man and we had 5 beautiful children. Throughout time though I still had that ache for the man who had captured my heart. My husband and I divorced after 20 years of marriage, although we remained friends. My daughter was graduating from college and we went to the graduation that summer night. As the graduates were called to accept their diplomas I heard a familiar name and all of a sudden I had goosebumps. The young woman on stage was the daughter to the man I had loved for so long 30 years ago.
After the ceremony I looked for him but could not find him and felt as if I were losing my love all over again. I had just opened my car door, when accross the parking lot I heard “Laurie!” I turned around and there was the most wonderful but older and even more handsome, crooked smile He looked at me and I looked at him and all of a sudden I was 17 again. He was divorced also and before I could tell him about me, he said “It might be a little late but how about a June wedding?” We were married the next June and I feel like my life is really beginnng all over again at age 50.
Proposal Story By:
Laurie Emerson
Biloxi, MS
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